Harbor Becomes First Blockchain Company with Transfer Agent and Broker-Dealer Licenses

On October 31st 2019, Harbor announced its receipt of a transfer agent license from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The license will enable Harbor to maintain records of stock ownership and dividends paid out to investors.

Harbor’s Transfer Agent License Explained

Harbor is continuing its development in becoming a one-stop-shop for the compliant issuance and management of security tokens.

Notably, the firm has now received a transfer agent license from the SEC, allowing it to maintain ownership and dividend pay-out records for security tokens issued through its platform.

The SEC has mandated that all Reg A+ offerings make use of transfer agents. The Reg A+ features an attractive exemption from many costly and resource intensive registration requirements.

It allows companies to raise up to $50 million from both accredited and non-accredited investors. Some believe the Reg A+ will drive the security token industry forward, making the first significant step towards the mainstream adoption of security tokens.

In September, Harbor received a broker-dealer license from FINRA.

Now, Harbor constitutes the first blockchain company to have both a broker-dealer license and a transfer agent license.

According to Harbor CEO Josh Stein, the two licenses allow Harbor to compliantly handle the entire life-cycle of security tokens, from initial issuance to secondary market trading. Stein says,

“Think of the entire life cycle of this, there is… selling the investors into the investment, maintaining the investment while they are in, and controlling how they are traded. The broker-dealer is mostly involved in gaining the investors into the investment. The transfer agent maintains the records while they are in and pays out dividends, and the transfer agent controls when they pay out.”

Harbor now has the regulatory approval to facilitate both aspects.

A little more than one month ago, Harbor announced a deal with iCap Equity to tokenize $100 million worth of real estate bonds on Ethereum.

Recently, Securitize— a technology provider for the tokenization of securities— also became an SEC-registered transfer agent.

What do you think of Harbor as an SEC-registered transfer agent? We want to know what you think in the comments section below.

Image courtesy of Harbor.