Credit Suisse Fund Services, the Swiss bank’s Luxembourg-based fund administration business, has processed its first end-to-end fund transaction on a blockchain platform.
The fund transaction took place using FundsDLT, a blockchain-based decentralised platform for fund processing, between Credit Suisse Asset Management and Portugal’s Banco Best.
The transaction included every part of the fund trade process on the platform, from delivery of the order to the processing of the trade and reduced the time between the request and the settlement of the fund order.
“Blockchain technology in connection with potential mutualised KYC (know your client) servicing will be a game changer for the investment funds business,” said Claude Metz, head of shareholder services, Credit Suisse Fund Services (Luxembourg) SA.
“This initiative benefits investors, distributors and transfer agents greatly from an operational efficiency standpoint, and we are only at the beginning of this most promising journey.”
FundDLT is backed by the Luxembourg Stock Exchange’s fund market infrastructure, Fundsquare, which uses smart contracts and DLT to streamline a range of fund administration and order-routing tasks between transfer agents, custodians, and asset managers.
A number of custodians and asset servicing providers have trialled using blockchain platforms to process fund transactions. In January last year, BNP Paribas Securities Services helped conduct a transaction test with its asset management business on the FundDLT platform.
Meanwhile, Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS) also ran a trial fund transaction on the IZNES platform last year using blockchain technology developed by SETL.