Banking Giants Send $30 Million in Securities Over DLT

Two major banks say they have successful sent securities worth €25 million ($30 million) over a blockchain-powered platform.

In an announcement today, Credit Suisse said it completed the live securities lending transaction with Dutch bank ING, adopting a collateral-lending blockchain application co-developed by a financial resource management firm HQLAX and enterprise blockchain consortium R3.

Credit Suisse said the application, built on R3's Corda distributed ledger platform, enables the two banking groups to swap legal ownership of Dutch and German government securities in a more efficient manner than with traditional systems.

According to a previous release, HQLAX launched the application in April 2017, in a joint effort with R3 and five of its member banks, including Credit Suisse and ING.

Romain Dumas, head of Rates Repo and Collateral Optimization at Credit Suisse Securities said of the trial:

"The success of this first live transaction speaks to the potential for blockchain technology to help improve collateral fluidity by creating a more efficient, transparent, and cost-effective marketplace for liquidity transfers."

While it's currently at the testing phase, Herve Francois, a blockchain initiative lead at ING, said in an interview with Reuters that the firms are expecting to see the application go live by the end of this year.

Credit Suisse image via Shutterstock