TradeBlock Founders Launch Permissioned Blockchain Company Axoni
The founders of TradeBlock, a global source of data and digital currency analysis, have launched a new venture focused solely on providing permissioned distributed ledger technology to financial institutions and capital market providers.
New York-based Axoni is a capital markets technology firm specializing in distributed ledger infrastructure providing services that include blockchain deployments, large-scale data management, smart contract development, analytics services and connectivity tools.
The company is working with some of the world’s largest financial institutions and service providers, including ICAP, in an effort to bring blockchain technology to global capital markets.
ICAP completes proof of technology
According to an announcement released today, ICAP, a leading markets operator and provider of post-trade risk mitigation and information services, has successfully completed a proof of technology test of a distributed ledger using blockchain technology provided by Axoni.
The two companies were brought together via Euclid Opportunities, ICAP’s early-stage funding and acceleration program for fintech startups.
The trial was conducted by ICAP’s Post Trade Risk and Information (PTRI) division and completed on February 26, 2016. According Jenny Knott, CEO of ICAP’s Post Trade Risk and Information Services division, the successful test case demonstrated the potential of blockchain technology to significantly transform post-trade operations while complying with regulatory requirements.
Distributed ledger technology has the potential to enhance the accuracy and timeliness of data by users, reduce operational risk and improve reconciliation and operations processes, provide a common golden source of user transaction and reference data across assets, and realize multiple back-office and technology cost savings, among many other advantages.
The successful trial represents a major step forward in the practical use of distributed digital ledgers, ICAP said, and demonstrates that a private blockchain infrastructure can operate safely in parallel with existing architecture, without requiring an immediate switchover.
The technology test was focusing on the distribution of data and not on the agreement and settlement of bilateral transactions, and building on existing PTRI solutions.
The PTRI division tested the technology using bilateral executed spot/forward foreign exchange block trades. It imported matches messages from Harmony network and converted them in real time to blockchain-based smart contracts.
These smart contracts were then distributed to nine representative participant nodes on the private blockchain network, where trades were permissioned for extra services such as valuation, compression and reporting.
ICAP’s PTRI team says that, in the coming months, it will discuss with participants about how they can access the new golden data source and start working toward realizing technology cost savings in disparate systems, while making markets safer and more efficient while meeting regulatory compliance standards.
