Will ‘Decentralized Finance’ Be the Next Disruptive Technology?

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) latest Global Financial Stability Report highlights myriad risks for the global financial system. They include the war in Ukraine, high debt, and soaring inflation.

But the report also warned about the impact of decentralized finance, or DeFi, an emerging set of financial services applications that are based on blockchain and other crypto technologies and don’t involve banks other traditional financial intermediaries

Citing possible systemic risk, the IMF wants governments to impose regulations because, the report says, DeFi results in the “buildup of leverage, and is particularly vulnerable to market, liquidity, and cyber risks.”

DeFi may not be a mainstream vehicle yet, but that doesn’t mean financial advisors don’t need to know about it.

What is DeFi?

It’s a kind of financial application that uses “smart contracts,” to operate on a blockchain platform, usually Ethereum. These software programs allow for fully automated, peer-to-peer financial transactions without intermediaries like banks or brokers, which generally means faster settlements of trades.

“With DeFi, users are able to perform most functions that a bank can,” says Jeremy Almond, founder and CEO of Paystand, a B2B payments platform. “This includes earning interest, borrowing, lending, buying insurance, trading derivatives, and trading assets.”

Supporters of DeFi say it offers the potential to democratize financial services for the unbanked. This is a key reason the Federal Reserve is looking at creating a digital currency.

The world currently has around 1.7 billion people who are unbanked, according to Yubo Ruan, founder and CEO of DeFi provider Parallel Finance. “Some of the reasons include a lack of government-issued IDs, problems with credit history, restrictive bank requirements, or a lack of banking infrastructure within a country.”

How easy is it to use?

It can actually be cumbersome. You need several applications to accomplish what may seem like routine transactions if done at a bank, and the jargon and concepts can get complicated.

“A combination of highly technical requirements, high fees, and confusing user interfaces are putting off potential users,” says Jackie Bona, CEO of Valora, a mobile crypto wallet. “This is making it difficult for people to get started in DeFi, scaring away those who need these apps the most.”

What are the risks?

According to Archie Ravishankar, CEO and founder of mobile banking app Cogni: “Regular consumers in this space lack the regulatory protections they’re accustomed to in traditional finance.” So if you lose money, you have no consumer protection, such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. True, you could bring a lawsuit, but the target DeFi organization may be an offshore entity.

Another issue is volatility. Just look at so-called stablecoins such as Luna. Within a week, its value plunged from $80 to virtually zero, tantamount to a run on the bank.

So should financial advisors suggest clients avoid these applications?

Generally, the answer is yes. DeFi is an emerging category of finance and it can be difficult to perform due diligence on new and decentralized technologies. Even those applications that are backed by venture capitalists have seen breaches.

When it comes to clients, DeFi is for those that have a high tolerance for risk. And if they are interested in investing, they should allocate a small part of their portfolio to it.

Can DeFi disrupt traditional financial services?

Even if it takes only a relatively small portion of the global market, the impact would be substantial.

“DeFi certainly has the potential to disrupt traditional finance across the board, and in some ways it already has—on a small scale so far,” says Liam Kelly, Europe news editor for Decrypt, a cryptocurrency news site. But he adds, “a lot of this hinges on breakthroughs in scalability and cutting reasonable lines between things like centralization and decentralization or opaqueness and transparency. Another possibility is that these technologies simply get absorbed by financial institutions to a point where to the consumer, nothing has changed at your brokerage account, except now on the back end it’s running on Ethereum or another blockchain network.”

Impact investing is becoming more mainstream as larger, institutional asset owners drive more money into the sector, according to the nonprofit Global Impact Investing Network in New York.

In the GIIN’s State of the Market 2024 report, published late last month, researchers found that assets allocated to impact-investing strategies by repeat survey responders grew by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% over the last five years.

These 71 responders to both the 2019 and 2024 surveys saw their total impact assets under management grow to US$249 billion this year from US$129 billion five years ago.

Medium- and large-size investors were largely responsible for the strong impact returns: Medium-size investors posted a median CAGR of 11% a year over the five-year period, and large-size investors posted a median CAGR of 14% a year.

Interestingly, the CAGR of assets held by small investors dropped by a median of 14% a year.

“When we drill down behind the compound annual growth of the assets that are being allocated to impact investing, it’s largely those larger investors that are actually driving it,” says Dean Hand, the GIIN’s chief research officer.

Overall, the GIIN surveyed 305 investors with a combined US$490 billion under management from 39 countries. Nearly three-quarters of the responders were investment managers, while 10% were foundations, and 3% were family offices. Development finance institutions, institutional asset owners, and companies represented most of the rest.

The majority of impact strategies are executed through private-equity, but public debt and equity have been the fastest-growing asset classes over the past five years, the report said. Public debt is growing at a CAGR of 32%, and public equity is growing at a CAGR of 19%. That compares to a CAGR of 17% for private equity and 7% for private debt.

According to the GIIN, the rise in public impact assets is being driven by larger investors, likely institutions.

Private equity has traditionally served as an ideal way to execute impact strategies, as it allows investors to select vehicles specifically designed to create a positive social or environmental impact by, for example, providing loans to smallholder farmers in Africa or by supporting fledging renewable energy technologies.

Future Returns: Preqin expects managers to rely on family offices, private banks, and individual investors for growth in the next six years

But today, institutional investors are looking across their portfolios—encompassing both private and public assets—to achieve their impact goals.

“Institutional asset owners are saying, ‘In the interests of our ultimate beneficiaries, we probably need to start driving these strategies across our assets,’” Hand says. Instead of carving out a dedicated impact strategy, these investors are taking “a holistic portfolio approach.”

An institutional manager may want to address issues such as climate change, healthcare costs, and local economic growth so it can support a better quality of life for its beneficiaries.

To achieve these goals, the manager could invest across a range of private debt, private equity, and real estate.

But the public markets offer opportunities, too. Using public debt, a manager could, for example, invest in green bonds, regional bank bonds, or healthcare social bonds. In public equity, it could invest in green-power storage technologies, minority-focused real-estate trusts, and in pharmaceutical and medical-care company stocks with the aim of influencing them to lower the costs of care, according to an example the GIIN lays out in a separate report on institutional strategies.

Influencing companies to act in the best interests of society and the environment is increasingly being done through such shareholder advocacy, either directly through ownership in individual stocks or through fund vehicles.

“They’re trying to move their portfolio companies to actually solving some of the challenges that exist,” Hand says.

Although the rate of growth in public strategies for impact is brisk, among survey respondents investments in public debt totaled only 12% of assets and just 7% in public equity. Private equity, however, grabs 43% of these investors’ assets.

Within private equity, Hand also discerns more evidence of maturity in the impact sector. That’s because more impact-oriented asset owners invest in mature and growth-stage companies, which are favored by larger asset owners that have more substantial assets to put to work.

The GIIN State of the Market report also found that impact asset owners are largely happy with both the financial performance and impact results of their holdings.

About three-quarters of those surveyed were seeking risk-adjusted, market-rate returns, although foundations were an exception as 68% sought below-market returns, the report said. Overall, 86% reported their investments were performing in line or above their expectations—even when their targets were not met—and 90% said the same for their impact returns.

Private-equity posted the strongest results, returning 17% on average, although that was less than the 19% targeted return. By contrast, public equity returned 11%, above a 10% target.

The fact some asset classes over performed and others underperformed, shows that “normal economic forces are at play in the market,” Hand says.

Although investors are satisfied with their impact performance, they are still dealing with a fragmented approach for measuring it, the report said. “Despite this, over two-thirds of investors are incorporating impact criteria into their investment governance documents, signalling a significant shift toward formalising impact considerations in decision-making processes,” it said.

Also, more investors are getting third-party verification of their results, which strengthens their accountability in the market.

“The satisfaction with performance is nice to see,” Hand says. “But we do need to see more about what’s happening in terms of investors being able to actually track both the impact performance in real terms as well as the financial performance in real terms.”