Nasdaq Opens Blockchain Services to Global Exchange Partners

Nasdaq has opened up its blockchain services to more than 100 of its market operator clients around the world as part of its newly unveiled Nasdaq Financial Framework.

Announced today, the framework is designed to provide end-to-end solutions to Nasdaq's financial infrastructure clients around the world including traditional exchanges.

The new financial infrastructure hub could pave the way for those exchanges and others to start using blockchain technology in a wide range of unnamed services.

Nasdaq’s executive vice president and head of market technology, Lars Ottersgård, said in a statement:

"We have closely collaborated with our clients – including Nasdaq’s technology leaders who oversee our markets – to understand and anticipate what the future will require of market operators and how they can address both business challenges and opportunities ahead."

The framework provides financial tools across three different areas, or "core components" as the statement describes the divisions, each designed so exchanges; inter-broker dealers; clearing houses; and central securities depositories can work with Nasdaq’s business applications in a single place.

The blockchain services are part of what Nasdaq calls its "Core Services" component, which also includes more traditional tools for operations and messaging. Nasdaq Core is "the heart" of the framework, serving as a hub, and Nasdaq Business Applications is a portfolio of business tools to support the full life-cycle of a trade, according to a statement.

Early-mover status

Going back to early 2015, Nasdaq has been one of the earliest Wall Street firms to publicly explore blockchain. In May of that year, the New York City-based exchange announced it was building Linq, a blockchain-based service to issue pre-IPO shares of companies.

By that December, Nasdaq issued its first investor shares on the platform, and this year, it made the announcement that it was developing voting technology for the Estonian stock market.

Since Nasdaq announced its plans, exchanges around the world have followed suit. Last month, CoinDesk published a report on 10 stock exchanges around the world now building with blockchain tech, including the Australian Securities Exchange, CME Group and Deutsche Börse.

Though Nasdaq's framework announced today leverage's the exchange's history, the program is a wholly new operation developed by its market technology’s division.

The suite of tools is available "immediately", according to the statement.

Nasdaq image via Shutterstock