A partnership between the trusted provider of post-trade services, Euroclear, and the financial technology company, Paxos, specializing in Blockchain implementation solutions, announced that the second pilot of their Euroclear Bankchain had been completed.
The project is a Blockchain settlement service for the London bullion that is set to go live later this year.
Two pilot programs
The first pilot program of the Euroclear Bankchain took place in December 2016 and involved over 600 OTC test bullion trades being settled on the platform over a period of two weeks.
It was co-ordinated through the Euroclear Bankchain Market Advisotry Group that includes participants working with Euroclear and Paxos in the roll-out of the new service.
The recently concluded second pilot program took place over two days and included 16 market participants including Citi, Société Générale, MKS PAMP Group, INTL FCStone Ltd, Barrick Gold Corporation, NEX EBS BrokerTec and ED&F Man. The pilot program saw over 100,000 settlements.
Seth Phillips, Bankchain Product Director at Paxos, said of the project:
“It has been exciting to watch the growth of the Euroclear Bankchain pilot program over the last month. We doubled the number of firms and significantly increased interaction as participants were spread across six countries and four time zones. Most importantly, we're proving that the platform can deliver lower costs and lower risk for the London gold market.”
Developing the new market infrastructure
Euroclear and Paxos have both been working closely with the London bullion market test and receive feedback on the platform.
Angus Scott, Head of Product Strategy and Innovation at Euroclear adds:
"We are encouraged by the extensive engagement of market participants in this second pilot and will continue as we further develop this new market infrastructure for the bullion market. The feedback provided is of great importance to make sure that our service will deliver real added value to the London bullion market through transparency, capital reduction and delivery versus payment settlement."
Paxos is a financial technology company delivering pioneering Blockchain solutions for global financial institutions. Its flagship service is Bankchain, a next-generation Blockchain settlement platform that is transforming post-trade across capital markets. Bankchain delivers instantaneous settlement and greater automation, offering market participants reduced counterparty risk, lower capital requirements and increased operational efficiencies.
Euroclear group is the financial industry's trusted provider of post trade services. At the core, the group provides settlement, safekeeping and servicing of domestic and cross-border securities from bonds, equities and derivatives to investment funds. Euroclear is a proven, resilient capital market infrastructure committed to delivering risk-mitigation, automation and efficiency at scale for its global client franchise.