SWIFT and seven central securities depositories (CSDs) have partnered to explore how distributed ledger technology (DLT) could be implemented in proxy voting and for digital assets.
The group will also look at how DLT can be used in corporate actions processing, as well as how existing standards, such as ISO 20022 can support it.
According to SWIFT, securities processing involves “extremely cumbersome manual processes that can carry significant inherent cost and risk”.
The group aims to create common standards and principles for the use of DLT amongst CSDs and promote these common standards and principles to other industry members, including regulators.
Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Caja de Valores, Depósito Central de Valores, Nasdaq Market Technology, National Settlement Depository, SIX Securities Services and Strate are among the CSDs participating in the DLT project with SWIFT.
This initiative has received endorsement from the International Securities Services Association.
According to SWIFT, additional CSDs are expected to join it in the coming weeks.
Stephen Lindsay, head of standards at SWIFT, said: “The promise of the technology on paper is great, but it is currently missing a key component around standardisation.”
“There is clear value in re-using established business definitions and facilitating interoperability amongst DLT implementations, which this project will demonstrate.”
