The Luxembourg initiative Fundchain, established by the start-up Scorechain, has announced the return of the collaborative initiative to make blockchain applications real for the fund industry’s ecosystem.
The group announces that this year, new financial institutions have joined the Luxembourg initiative and participants now include Brown Brothers Harriman, European Fund Administration (EFA), HSBC, ING Luxembourg, Pictet, RBC Investor & Treasury Services, PwC Luxembourg, Schroders and SWIFT.
The aim for this second phase is to go beyond prototypes and to define ready-to-use products that the industry could implement in the short-term. All participants are currently working together with the technological support of Scorechain to focus on use cases subject to blockchain redefinition.
Pierre Gérard, Scorechain CEO and Fundchain Project leader says: “During Fundchain 2016 we had a global approach and we gave an overview on how the Blockchain could impact the fund industry. The new phase will concentrate on topics that could be implemented in a really near future. Thus, the technological feasibility, the business model, interoperability and any regulatory impacts will be analysed. Non-core business use cases might be the good targets”
Last year, after six months of research, the publication of a white paper on the impact of DLTs on the fund distribution value chain and a regulatory study, the group has finally decided to focus its research on the transfer agents’ processes.
The prototype has been unveiled through the name of the ‘Smart-TA’. Using a private Ethereum blockchain that works, the PoC unveils how a distributed ledger can incrementally improve and automate processes for digital shares transactions.
With a user-friendly interface the Smart-TA shows how blockchain technology can bring efficiency and transparency for all industry participants involved in such activity, from customers to regulators, Fundchain says.
