Hedgeweek: Blockchain to become mainstream in financial post trade market within a few years

13 February 2017

Blockchain will become adopted in the financial post-trade area in three to five years, according to almost half of the membership base of the Post-Trade Distributed Ledger (PTDL) Group.

The survey of PTDL’s global membership found that the top three benefits of distributed ledger technology will be operational cost savings (cited by 81 per cent), increased efficiency/ reduced settlement cycles (67 per cent), and transparency (43 per cent). In a reflection of the significance of the new technology, a fifth (20 per cent) of respondents said that the strategic importance of blockchain within their own organisation was ‘very high’, with an additional 34 per cent saying it was ‘high’; only 7 per cent said it was a ‘low’ priority.

PTDL Group members are from all continents and include global banks, custodians, Central Securities Depositories, clearing houses, exchanges, regulators, government agencies and central banks.  The organisation brings together major post-trade industry participants to share information and ideas about how distributed ledger technologies can transform the post-trade landscape. 

Despite the compelling arguments for the adoption of blockchain, PTDL’s members warned that industry adoption remains the most significant barrier to implementing blockchain in a wider post trade industry context – this was cited by 78 per cent of respondents. Regulation (56 per cent), a clear business need (55 per cent), concerns around confidentiality (51 per cent), and lack of standardisation (49 per cent) complete the top five in terms of impediments. Lack of available talent is seen as the least significant concern (23 per cent).

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