Digital Asset Partners with Swiss Financial Firm SIX to Create ‘Roadmap’ for Blockchain Applications in Securities Market Infrastructure

A major Swiss financial infrastructure provider has partnered with blockchain startup Digital Asset Holding to create a proof-of-concept focused on securities market infrastructure.

The Swiss company is SIX Securities Services, and the company and Digital Asset will create a "roadmap" for how to apply blockchain technology to the entire securities use lifecycle.

Thomas Zeeb, CEO of the firm's division, said distributed ledger technology was 'key' to the future of SIX's securities post-trade business.

“We need to understand the technology and, more importantly, its applicability and future flexibility to stay ahead of the curve. Partnering with Digital Asset is one way to accelerate our own development plans as well as leverage their experience in this area.”

The purpose of the project is to demonstrate how to create a distributed, encrypted straight-through trading tool within an existing securities trading flow. As the roadmap is completed, the company plans to create a production-ready service.

SIX Securities offers a wide range of services and plays a fundamental role in the Swiss financial institutions industry, including its primary stock exchange and post-trade settlement services.

Last year, SIX Securities executed 409 million clearing transactions totaling about 3.1 trillion Swiss francs ($3.17 trillion), according to the company’s annual report. The company made a profit of $43 million during the period.

SIX Securities was formed in 2008 through the merger of SWX Group, Telecurse Group and SIX Group. The company also provides exchange services and financial data services, and is a bank card payment processor in Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg.

Later this month, the company will demonstrate an early distributed ledger prototype at the SIBOS conference ^[1] in Geneva.

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1. SIBOS is a landmark annual international conference for the financial services industry organized by SWIFT, which has an important international influence in the financial services sector.