A group of stock exchange operators decided to improve their post-trading infrastructure with the help of the Blockchain technology. The bid doesn’t come a day too early.
Seven securities depositors and financial-information transmission service Swift joined hands to use the Blockchain for their exchange business, Swift said in a statement today. SIX, the operator of the Swiss exchange, is part of the group.
Apart from Swift and SIX, the following companies participate: Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Caja de Valores, Depósito Central de Valores, Nasdaq Market Technology, National Settlement Depository and Strate. Further depository operators will likely join in coming weeks, according to Swift.
Setting Industry Standards
The completion of securities transactions is a costly and risky business – particularly where several participants are involved with hugely complex manual interventions. The participants of the projects see a potential for improvement for instance in respect to the depots of voting rights and digital investments.
The partners also aim to set industry standards for the use of Blockchain in after-trading infrastructure.
Further Blockchain Project
The move is timely because the Blockchain is linking trading partners directly, endangering the business model of the intermediaries, such as stock exchanges. Swift is equally affected by this trend.
SIX is also part of a further Blockchain project with UBS and Credit Suisse to improve the quality of counter-party reference data with industry counterparts, using Ethereum smart contracts.
