Euroclear, EIB, Santander and EY to Pursue Blockchain Pilot for ECP Settlement

[Goodcat49]

Euroclear, one of the world’s largest securities depositories, says it will push forward with building a pilot blockchain-based platform for the issuance and settlement of European commercial paper (ECP). The news was reported by EuroClear on June 19.

Euroclear settled €791 trillion ($885.48 trillion) in securities transactions and held an average of €28.8 trillion ($32.24 trillion) in client assets in 2018, according to results published this March.

The financial services titan has today revealed that it successfully completed a proof-of-value study for an ECP-focused blockchain platform together with the European Investment Bank, Spain’s Santander and “Big Four” auditor EY.

The blockchain platform will reportedly serve end-to-end for issuing and settling ECPs — unsecured short-term debt instruments issued by banks or corporations, which represent a $1.2 trillion market.

The press release notes that “based on the initiative’s success, Euroclear intends to move on to pilot phase soon.”

A disintermediated blockchain platform would provide time efficiencies by replacing cumbersome bilateral processing between market participants with a consolidated system, according to the press release. Euroclear has reportedly further outlined that:

“Other key benefits of this blockchain solution would be full transparency and traceability of ECP issuance related activities [...] making ECP same day issuance a new market standard.”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/euroclear-eib-santander-and-ey-to-pursue-blockchain-pilot-for-ecp-settlement