SETL launches blockchain-powered OpenCSD platform
Peter Randall, SETL
SETL, the institutional payment and settlement infrastructure based on blockchain, has launched its OpenCSD platform.
The blockchain-powered platform, SETL’s first commercial offering, enables any market participant to commission and run a permissioned registry service for payments, settlement and clearing of cash and other “financial instruments”. It has been benchmarked to “settle billions of transactions a day in real-time”.
Peter Randall, CEO of SETL, says: “The time has come to stop talking about the characteristics of blockchain and to start realising its promise.”
He adds: “A group of participants can now permission a working blockchain platform in a matter of minutes and jointly record and settle changes in ownership. This will help bring competition into a segment of financial markets which has thus far been dominated by quasi-monopolistic incumbents.”
The platform has been designed to be compatible with “existing and forthcoming regulations” such as the European Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR), but is “not specific to any particular regulatory model and, as such, is jurisdictionally agnostic”.
The OpenCSD functionality comprises four main components:
- A permissioned membership structure;
- A range of control functions including clearing, settlement and corporate actions;
- Liquidity functionality including collateral and repo facilities;
- A messaging system which can be used to transmit ISO messages as well as enable communications between participants in a “highly secure” environment.
It also provides “granular identity services” by enabling participants to use “industry initiatives”, such as the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) system, to allow authority and transaction management.
