Japanese banking group Mizuho has completed a blockchain test focused on cross-border securities settlement.
The test used the Open Assets Protocol, a commonly deployed implementation of colored coins that provides an added layer of functionality to the bitcoin blockchain. Using Open Assets, bitcoins can be specially marked to represent other assets on the blockchain.
According to an 8th March press release , the test included the participation of Japanese IT giant Fujitsu, including its research and development arm Fujitsu Laboratories.
The participants said that the test, which took place between December and February, showed that post-trade processing times can be reduced using blockchain applications.
Mizuho said in a statement: "In the system, continuously generated blocks containing trade information were chronologically linked as blockchain, becoming information that could not be tampered. And, because the information could be shared between multiple companies, the partners confirmed that it was possible to shorten the time required in the post-trade process." Near-instant settlement
The trial’s aim, Mizuho said, was to seek a method of facilitating the post-trade process that would both shorten the time involved as well as reduce the possibility of data tampering.
"The goal was to enable low-cost, low-risk cross-border securities transactions by building a system utilizing blockchain technology that can almost instantly share matched trade information in the post-trade process as data that cannot be tampered with, but without building a large-scale settlement system from scratch," the bank said.
Mizuho said that it offered its "expertise with the securities settlement process" to the project, with Fujitsu developing the test system that was used. Fujitsu Laboratories managed the trial itself, according to the companies involved.Mizuho and Fujitsu aren’t the only companies in the finance space looking at applying blockchain tech to potential solutions for post-trade settlement.Last year, a group of firms involving the London Stock Exchange, Société Générale […]
