Deutsche Börse’s blockchain journey

Blockchain technology has increasingly attracted interest from stock market operators due to its potential applications in clearing and settlement.

Among them, Nasdaq, a financial company that was the first to get involved in this technology, has launched its own blockchain service platform LINQ; the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) invested in the Bitcoin company Coinbase in 2015; and the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is working with Digital Asset Holdings (DAH) to develop blockchain solutions.

Deutsche Börse has been a bit quiet in this group. As the largest securities dealer in the German market, the group recently participated in DAH's $60 million financing. As of 2014, the group has nearly 4,540 employees and net income of more than 2 billion euros in the last fiscal year.

Deutsche Börse’s move to explore blockchain is perhaps unsurprising, as the German financial giant’s business covers the entire production chain, from securities and derivatives trading to clearing, settlement and custody.

Deutsche Börse has been interested in blockchain technology for some time, but is still figuring out the best way to approach it, according to group spokesman Heiner Seidel.

Seidel told CoinDesk:

“Like many other companies, we started by analyzing the potential of Bitcoin and quickly recognized the relevance of the underlying technology.”

Prototype in development

Interestingly, Seidel noted that Deutsche Börse has already started developing several blockchain proof-of-concept projects.

“We’ve had a project to analyse the market since early 2015 and even developed some prototypes,” he said.

Rather than risk focusing on any single blockchain application, the group chose to experiment with the technology across multiple business lines.

In response to some of the criticism the Bitcoin blockchain has received in recent months, he continued:

“Our IT systems must be robust, reliable, fast and secure. Things like latency or scalability are important prerequisites.”

Keep exploring

Looking ahead, the group has plans to get more deeply involved in the blockchain space, and according to Seidel, Deutsche Börse will take a “holistic” approach to this goal.

First, the group's internal software and applications will continue to be explored.

He further explained that Deutsche Börse is interested in participating in the Hyperledger consortium blockchain project, an open source blockchain project led by the Linux Foundation.

The Hyperledger project was first announced in December last year, with participants such as Cisco, IBM, blockchain startups DAH and R3CEV. This week, the project announced that 30 companies have joined the alliance.

In addition, according to Deutsche Börse’s recent investment in DAH, the group is also interested in acquiring stakes in FinTech startups.

Original article: http://www.coindesk.com/deutsche-borse-blockchain-prototypes/
By Daniel Palmer
Translator: Overnight porridge
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/deutsche-borse-blockchain)