About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

DTCC Promotes Development of Distributed Ledger Technology

Subscribe to our newsletter

DTCC has thrown its weight behind distributed ledger technology as a means of modernising post-trade processes and says it is in the best position to coordinate evaluation and standardisation of the distributed ledger platform, address challenges and decide whether it is a better solution than existing technology.

The company sets out its views on distributed ledger – or blockchain – technology, and calls for industry collaboration to modernise, streamline and simplify the siloed design of financial infrastructure and address limitations in post-trade processes in a paper entitled ‘Embracing Disruption – Tapping the Potential of Distributed Ledgers to Improve the Post-Trade Landscape’.

Michael Bodson, president and CEO at DTCC, says: “The industry has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine and modernise its infrastructure to resolve long-standing operational challenges. To realise the potential of distributed ledger technology in a responsible manner and to avoid a disconnected maze of siloed solutions, the industry must work together in a coordinated fashion. As an industry-owned and governed financial market utility with more than 40 years of service, DTCC is uniquely positioned to help lead the effort in exploring how distributed ledger technology can simplify or replace legacy post-trade systems.”

DTCC suggests processes that should be explored using distributed ledger technology include: master data management; asset and securities issuance and servicing; confirmed asset trades; trade and contract validation, recording and matching for complex asset types; netting and clearing; collateral management; and settlement.

Despite its apparent enthusiasm, DTCC acknowledges that the technology is still immature and unproven, has scale limitations and lacks underlying infrastructure to integrate into the existing financial markets environment. And it warns: “The industry hype and research into this new platform has been unprecedented, but also generally uncoordinated up to this point. As a result, the industry is at risk of repeating the past and creating countless new siloed solutions based on different standards and with significant reconciliation challenges.”

Demonstrating its commitment to progressing blockchain technology, DTCC has invested in Digital Asset Holdings, a developer of blockchain technology for the financial services industry, and joined the Linux Foundation to support the Hyperledger project, a collaborative effort to develop open source blockchain technology.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: Smart Trader Desktops: Placing UX at the front and centre of the trading workflow

Trading strategy is in place, the technology stack is optimised and the trading team is highly skilled – but what about the user experience? Whatever the stack, the desktop, the trading apps and their functionality, a trading platform is only as good as its user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). This webinar will review...

BLOG

Beyond the AI Hype: Six Trading Technology Trends to Watch in 2025

The trading technology landscape is heading into 2025 with unprecedented momentum, driven by a convergence of regulatory changes, market structure reforms, and advances in core infrastructure technologies. While artificial intelligence dominates much of the conversation around fintech, the year ahead will also be shaped by broader, practical shifts—from faster settlement cycles and rising data costs...

EVENT

TradingTech Summit London

Now in its 14th year the TradingTech Summit London brings together the European trading technology capital markets industry and examines the latest changes and innovations in trading technology and explores how technology is being deployed to create an edge in sell side and buy side capital markets financial institutions.

GUIDE

Institutional Digital Assets Handbook 2024

Despite the setback of the FTX collapse, institutional interest in digital assets has grown markedly in the past 12 months, with firms of all sizes now acknowledging participation in some form. While as recently as a year ago, institutional trading firms were taking a cautious stance toward their use, the acceptance of tokenisation, stablecoins, and...