The Glue enters a new ground-breaking partnership with Belfius, the second largest bank and insurer in Belgium with more than 3,5 million customers. This follows the Belfius announcement on 14 March 2019 about the launch of Dot-Capital, an online marketplace for the primary debt market. Dot-Capital has been created to modernize all aspects of bond issuance: providing secure communications, real-time market updates, market transparency, and online issuance and subscriptions.

With Dot-Capital, Belfius makes it easier for companies, cities or municipalities among others, to access the capital market. It is a 100% digital marketplace accessible on a PC or tablet, connecting corporates and governmental institutions acting as investor or issuer. It promotes ease of use and customer satisfaction while boosting operational efficiency by eliminating time-consuming manual processes.

The Glue provided Belfius with a cloud-native marketplace that was built front-to-back on its API-based platform; the data layer, integration layer, business logic as well as the user interface. The Dot-Capital marketplace administers its own data while at the same time integrates with Belfius to synchronize customer data and to initiate and confirm trades.

A number of components creates the intuitive and functional user experience:

* Authentication and signing: a secure two-factor mechanism
* Content management system: quick website updates and integration between public and authenticated parts
* Document management: document upload/download and automated generation of CSV exports and PDF forms
* Notification management: informs users about specific events
* Chat module: allows seamless communication between all participants
* Product module: view, create, update products, and perform complex search queries
* Trading module: secure trading online
* Investor meeting feature: view, create and update meetings, register for meetings and automate calendar invites

In their quest to find a long-term partner, Belfius were specifically looking for a company with both business and technical expertise and a proven bank-specific framework which would enable an accelerated roll-out of this innovative solution. The Glue’s platform is an out of-the-box, bank-grade platform that features all essential non-functional requirements such as scalability, high-availability, security, consistency, and guaranteed data-persistence. Moreover, the company’s modular approach enables Belfius to scale when ready – it is the firm’s ambition to become the reference platform for investors and issuers on the European primary debt market.

Patrick Devis, CIO and associated member of the Belfius Board: “With The Glue, Belfius has found an integrated solution that was versatile and able to accommodate the very specific needs we have with Dot-Capital. We believe it is a sound basis to develop this new activity and shows how Belfius can be innovative not only in digital retail-banking – which we are already renowned for – but also in other much more specific niche markets.”.

Jurgen Ingels, Co-founder and Chairman of the Board at The Glue: “The Glue’s goal is to help financial institutions drive change and adapt to the digital market reality. Therefore, we are delighted to have been selected to co-develop this Belgium-first solution. It is a groundbreaking solution that truly bridges the gap between efficiency and relevant customer engagement. From analysis to development, project management, front end screens and implementation services, this has been a highly collaborative journey.”.