Institutions successfully use blockchains to create and process digital assets

There continues to be a number of actual examples whereby DLTs or blockchain technology are being used by regulated financial services companies to create and execute digital asset transactions in a wide variety of jurisdictions. The promise of greater transparency, real time settlement, utilisation of smart contracts to trigger income payments, less reliance on counterparties (therefore greater efficiency), lower costs and improved risk controls are powerful drivers for the adoption of blockchain-powered platforms. A number of established financial institutions as well new FinTech firms have been trialling the use of blockchain technology and/or the digitisation of a variety of assets.

In Switzerland, three banks (Credit Suisse, Pictet and Vontobel), have issued a structured security using the Ethereum blockchain and settled the transactions with fiat currency. The digital securities were traded on BX Swiss. Daniel Gorrera, Head Digital Assets at Credit Suisse, has reported: “The tran…