BNY Mellon Mum About 2021 Custody bank BNY Mellon is telling its approximately 48,000 staff members across the globe to continue to work remotely for the rest of 2020. “Our top priority remains the health and safety of our employees and our clients,” a BNY Mellon spokesperson tells FTF News. “A majority of our global… Read More >>
Blockchain Successor to CHESS to Launch in 2022
Pandemic Delays Launch of New ASX System The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) has set its new go-live date of April 2022 for the blockchain-based system that will replace its incumbent clearing and settlement, the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS), officials say. The new launch date is 12 months beyond the original launch date, which… Read More >>
Bond.One Pioneers Debt Origination via DLT
A fixed income security-issuance and administrative services provider, Bond.One, has just launched a private placement bond from the McCarton Foundation that Bond.One says is an industry first — debt origination via a platform that exploits distributed ledger technology (DLT). Bond.One officials tell FTF News that they hope that this first step will pave the way… Read More >>
CFTC Explains Smart Contracts
Through its LabCFTC extension for FinTech innovation, the CFTC has issued a primer “intended to be an educational tool” to explain what a “smart contract” actually is (in case you’re not certain), and to point out some of its shortcomings. “Fundamentally, a ‘smart contract’ is a set of coded computer functions,” according to the primer…. Read More >>
IBM & CLS Collaborate on DLT Network PoC
IBM and CLS to Work on DLT Proof-of-Concept Effort Computing giant IBM is collaborating with CLS, a market infrastructure group delivering settlement, processing, and data solutions, on a proof of concept (PoC) effort for LedgerConnect, described as a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform for the financial services industry. The LedgerConnect offering to come is intended… Read More >>
SIX to Create a Fully Integrated Digital Exchange
The stock exchange for Switzerland, which SIX Swiss Exchange Ltd. owns and manages, is building what it says will be an integrated trading, settlement and custody infrastructure for crypto currencies that will help client banks pursue their digital asset initiatives. Earlier this month, SIX officials said that the planned “digital asset ecosystem,” the SIX Digital… Read More >>
Blockchain Budgets and Staffs Are Growing: Report
Financial services firms are bolstering their staffs and increasing their budgets to get on the blockchain bus, but the development process has been harder than expected, according to a new report from market research firm Greenwich Associates. “The financial services industry is spending about $1.7 billion per year on blockchain, as banks and other firms… Read More >>
Northern Trust Secures U.S. Patents for DLT Solutions
Officials at custodian bank Northern Trust report that the firm has been awarded two U.S. patents for inventions based upon distributed ledger technology (DLT) that are intended to provide “the efficient, secure and transparent management of lifecycle events within private equity fund administration,” officials say. The patents are a key aspect of the firm’s push… Read More >>
Global Framework Would Fix Fragmented OTC Repositories: DTCC
A new report from the DTCC calls for a new global reporting framework to complete the Great Recession mandate of the Group of 20 (G20) to establish repositories of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives trades, intended to help regulators sift out potential risks. The DTCC is also pointing to the possibilities of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and… Read More >>
Digital Asset Launches Developer Program for Smart Contracts
Digital Asset, a pioneer of distributed ledger technology (DLT) for financial services, is launching a developer program for writing smart contracts via the Digital Asset Modeling Language, an attempt to bring DAML to “a wider audience” that will pave the way for more applications to run via the vendor’s flagship platform. “DAML is the enterprise… Read More >>