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Traditional fund subscriptions and redemptions settle in 3-5 business days. For some private market funds, settlement can also last up to a month. Rime settles orders in 2-5 minutes. This speed comes from using tokenized assets on blockchain, which eliminates the multi-party coordination and batch processing that create delays in traditional settlement.

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The Traditional Way

When an investor subscribes to a fund through conventional infrastructure, multiple parties must coordinate sequentially:
  1. Transfer agent receives payment notification (Day 1)
  2. Custody bank updates registry (Day 2-3)
  3. Central securities depository records ownership (Day 3-5)
Each party operates independently with its own processing schedule. With delaying batching processes at each step and working times only during business hours, this multi-day timeline is purely operational overhead – the actual business decision (shares being bought at a given price) happens immediately. The delay is infrastructure limitation, not business requirement.

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How Fast Settlement Works

With tokenized assets, ownership transfer happens on the blockchain the moment payment is confirmed. There’s no sequential coordination between multiple parties because everyone shares the same registry that updates instantly. Timeline:
  1. Your customer’s payment arrives (bank transfer typically 1-10 minutes for SEPA instant)
  2. Rime confirms payment receipt (immediately)
  3. Blockchain transaction updates the registry (1-2 minutes)
  4. Settlement complete – your customer owns the shares
Total time: Minutes, not days. The blockchain serves all the functions that traditionally require separate parties (transfer agent, custody bank, registry). The smart contract updates ownership atomically – one transaction, one source of truth, immediate finality.

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Business Opportunities

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Capital Efficiency

With traditional settlement, investor capital sits idle for 3-5 days between payment and ownership. For funds deploying large amounts across multiple subscriptions, this represents significant deadweight loss. Fast settlement means capital deploys immediately and begins compounding. No multi-day waiting period where money has been paid but isn’t yet working.

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Operational Cost Reduction

Traditional settlement comes with fees for every intermediary transfer agents, custody banks, and central securities depositories. Tokenized settlement collapses these costs into a single blockchain transaction. The cost structure makes smaller ticket sizes economically viable.

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Customer Experience

Retail investors expect digital transactions to complete instantly. Multi-day settlement feels archaic compared to the rest of their financial experience. Fast settlement enables:
  • Portfolio updates within minutes of payment
  • Redemptions that settle as quickly as subscriptions
  • Real-time confirmation instead of “your order is processing”

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Eliminated Settlement Risk

Traditional settlement separates payment and ownership transfer, creating settlement risk – the period where payment has cleared but ownership hasn’t transferred yet. With tokenized settlement, payment and ownership transfer happen atomically, i.e. in one indivisible step. The blockchain transaction ensures shares transfer only when payment confirms. This entire risk category is eliminated by the architecture.

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Enabling New Business Cases

Fast settlement doesn’t just make existing operations faster – it makes previously uneconomical models viable: Smaller Ticket Sizes: With transfer agents and other man-in-the-middle out of the picture, smaller ticket sizes become economically viable. Retail-scale ELTIF distribution becomes profitable. Secondary Market Liquidity: ELTIFs include periodic liquidity windows. Fast settlement enables atomic peer-to-peer transfers where payment and ownership swap simultaneously, making secondary markets practically viable. Frequent Trading: For open-end funds or frequent NAV calculations, daily or weekly subscriptions/redemptions become operationally manageable at scale.

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How It Works for Your Platform

When you integrate Rime’s Platform API, fast settlement happens automatically:
  1. You create an order via our API
  2. Payment is made
  3. Rime detects payment confirmation
  4. Blockchain settlement occurs automatically
  5. You receive a webhook notification that settlement has been completed
The blockchain complexity is abstracted – you interact with standard REST API endpoints. Rime handles key management, transaction submission, and confirmation tracking.