CLS and IBM announced a collaboration on a proof of concept for a distributed ledger platform proof in the financial services industry. Called LedgerConnect, it is designed to enable banks, buy and sell side firms, fintechs and software vendors to deploy, share and consume services hosted on a shared distributed ledger network. Operating on a private permissioned network based on the IBM Blockchain Platform and Hyperledger Fabric technology, LedgerConnect targets regulated and security-conscious enterprises and will be available across asset classes.
Financial institutions will be able to access services in areas such as KYC, customer processes, sanctions screening, collateral management, derivatives post-trade processing and reconciliation and market data. Nine financial institutions, including Barclays and Citi, are participating in the PoC and have selected services from a number of vendors including Baton Systems, Calypso, Copp Clark, IBM, MPhasis, OpenRisk, SynSwap and Persistent Systems to participate. On completion of a successful PoC and generation of market demand, CLS and IBM plan to make the platform widely available.