Coattail Market Blockchain PoC are popping up like mushrooms
A group of five major banks, working with Thomson Reuters, IHS Markit and Axoni, have carried out a successful test of blockchain technology and smart contracts to manage affirmations and post-trade lifecycle processing for OTC equity swaps. Barclays, Citi, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan and an unnamed tier one FS firm took part in the month-long experiment, led by capital markets tech startup Axoni and also joined by Capco. The group established a blockchain trade processing network using hosted and locally-installed deployments of Axoni’s proprietary distributed ledger software, testing automated lifecycle management and synchronisation of single stock, index, and portfolio swaps. The firms wanted to test blockchain tech because for certain types of equity swaps, independently-built systems at each major dealer require buy-side firms and their administrators to create complex, bespoke connectivity for each counterparty.
