Vanguard Advances Blockchain Technology Pilot

 

 

US-based investment management firm Vanguard announced on Thursday another step towards applying blockchain technology to digitize asset-backed securities markets.

 

Through a partnership with technology provider Symbiont and in close collaboration with a large US ABS issuer, as well as BNY Mellon, Citi, and State Street, Vanguard managed to model the full lifecycle of an ABS settlement on distributed ledger technology (DLT) network by replicating end-to-end transaction flows.

 

The Most Diverse Audience to Date at FMLS 2020 – Where Finance Meets Innovation

With offices in New York and Amsterdam, Symbiont is led by a team of experts in capital markets and blockchain technology.

 

“Vanguard is dedicated to providing innovative, world-class solutions that help advance the financial services industry,” said Warren Pennington, principal and head of Vanguard’s Investment Management FinTech Strategies Group.

 

“By digitizing and streamlining the ABS issuance process, we will be able to increase the speed and transparency of transactions while reducing costs and minimizing exposure to risk, which ultimately leads to a more efficient business model for future generations of capital market activity,” he added.

 

Vanguard and Symbiont have been working diligently with a large US ABS issuer and participants in the banking industry to improve the process of securitization of ABS issuances, according to their statement.

 

The vision for pairing Symbiont’s Assembly DLT with smart contracts, self-executing contracts that are triggered when an agreed-upon event occurs, is to offer increased information flow, enhance price discovery and secondary market liquidity, and automate key corporate actions through the use of a common infrastructure that is open to all market participants.