Briefs: Deutsche fights miss-selling claims, Silver Chef raises equity, blockchain projects launched 19 September 2016 3:59PM Banking Day staff Briefs, Accounting, Authorised deposit-taking institutions, Branches of Foreign Bank, Business lending, Capital raisings, Debt capital markets, Deutsche Bank, Equity capital markets, Finance regulation, IT systems, Deutsche Bank said it would fend off a $US14 billion claim from the US Department of Justice over allegations it mis-sold mortgage-backed securities during the 2000s. "Deutsche Bank has no intent to settle these potential civil claims anywhere near the number cited," it said in a statement. "The negotiations are only just beginning. The bank expects that they will lead to an outcome similar to those of peer banks which have settled at materially lower amounts. Equipment finance company Silver Chef has raised A$7.5 million of equity capital though a placement to institutional and sophisticated shareholders. Silver Chef executive chairman Allan English said the capital raising ensured that the company was appropriately funded to support its growth outlook. The company's rental asset base grew 61 per cent to $397.9 million in the year to June. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ said it would "examine the design, management and execution of contracts among business partners' using blockchain technologies, with IBM the partner for a pilot. IBM said this was one of the first projects built on the Hyperledger Project fabric, an open-source blockchain platform. Australian payments company Cuscal is a collaborator in the Hyperledger Project, a blockchain initiative launched this year by the Linux Foundation. Accounting software supplier Xero said it introduced new payment application programming interfaces designed to streamline small business use of BPay. The first to offer the APIs will be Macquarie Business Banking (which has a rental payment system called DEFT) and Tyro.