US-based Seven Stars Cloud Group (SSC), a leading global technology firm focusing on digital asset production and distribution, has announced a three-year exclusive $24 billion (Rs 167,024 crore) deal with China's National Transportation Capacity Company (NTS).

The deal will be to issue fixed income lease financing-based products, through a global strategic alliance network. This network operates in a regulatory compliant manner for large-scale electric bus upgrades as part of the Chinese government's regulations for all buses to be replaced with electric buses by 2021.

The market size for the mandatory replacements and upgrades to achieve fully-electric bus operations in China is estimated at 1 trillion RMB (approx. $145B/ Rs 10 lakh crore). NTS is said to be China’s largest full-service operator for electric buses, with sales, lease financing, a charging station network, and real-time data services including media, payments, maps, and facial recognition.

Under the terms of the deal, SSC, through its global strategic alliance network, will provide two distinct financing campaigns, one in China and the second across global markets. For the China-based financing, SSC will conduct financing activities through the sale of fixed income products to raise 60 billion RMB (approximately $8.75 billion/ Rs 60,869 crore) over three years (an average of 20 billion RMB / $2.9B / Rs 20,176 crore per year). For the global markets financing activities, SSC will exclusively provide both fixed income and asset digitisation products to raise $15 billion/ Rs 104,362 crore over three years (an average of $5 billion/ Rs 34,782 crore per year).

Bruno Wu, chairman and CEO of Seven Stars Cloud, said, "This is a truly ground-breaking deal globally for blockchain-based fintech companies to gain such a large-scale, asset-backed, contract. By combining regulated financial infrastructure, and the market confidence in asset-based products, with AI-enhanced risk management and the dynamics of blockchain-enabled fractionalisation, securitisation, tokenisation, and global trading of token-based offerings, we are delivering the next generation of financial products which will be compelling for both asset-rich industries and investors alike. It's an exciting time for SSC, and we're extremely pleased and honoured to partner with NTS on this offering."

Jihong Huang, president of National Transportation Capacity Co, stated: "SSC has taken traditional lease financing business offerings and rejuvenated them with today's new technology, in which flexibility, fractionalisation, and global accessibility are key. A combination of SSC's Blockchain and AI technologies, combined with our shared mission for unlocking both liquidity and enterprise value through asset digitisation, will result in a significant transformation of the entire lease financing-based fixed income market. Each of the leading 10 bus manufacturers in China strongly back NTS in this initiative, and the success of this transaction with SSC will place asset-backed digital offerings firmly on the map."

SSC customises its technology platform for various business use cases, operates the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and partners with businesses that deliver core digital asset product creation. It delivers a global multi-layer technology infrastructure ecosystem that issues, trades, and settles digital asset transactions.  The company leverages direct sales channels and automated sales systems via digital asset exchange platforms which is inclusive of decentralised exchanges to realize digital asset distribution, social media, traditional regulated broker-dealer network as well as institutions as direct clients.