Finextra Research: Latest fintech news, analysis, interviews, features and opinion by industry experts

Regulators increase scrutiny of ASX post-trade arrangements

Today ASIC and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) (the regulators) have taken further action to ensure that all necessary steps are taken by ASX to support and maintain current CHESS until its replacement is successfully implemented.

15 December 2022

News/crypto

United Fintech buys FX and digital assets specialist Cobalt

United Fintech, an outfit dedicated to scooping up a stable of capital markets fintechs, has acquired Cobalt, a provider of risk and data services to the FX and digital asset markets. Terms were not disclosed.

15 December 2022

News/wholesale

Bank of Italy selects Algorand to provide public blockchain platform for 'Digital Sureties' project

The Bank of Italy has selected blockchain technology from Algorand to support a new digital guarantees platform.

14 December 2022

News/startups

Stablecoin startup Membrane Finance reels in EU money licence and €2 million in seed financing

Membrane Finance, a finnish fintech building a European alternative to the USD stablecoin, has been granted an Electronic Money Licence by the country's regulator and picked up €2 million in seed funding.

07 December 2022

News/wholesale

Vanguard Australia deploys blockchain-based back office tech

Vanguard Australia has deployed Grow’s back office technology for fund administrators built on R3's Corda blockchain platform.

07 December 2022

Company update/crypto

Fnality and HQLAX run PoC of cross-chain repo swap settlement

Fnality and HQLAX announce the successful completion of the first proof of concept (PoC) delivery versus payment (DvP) repo settlement across the Fnality Payment System (FnPS) and HQLAX’s Digital Collateral Registry, bridging the distributed ledger technologies (DLT) of Enterprise Ethereum and R3 Corda, respectively.

05 December 2022

News/wholesale

IBM and Maersk switch off TradeLens blockchain logistics platform

Maersk and IBM are to shut down the TradeLens blockchain platform for global supply chains in the face of market apathy towards the project.

30 November 2022

News/wholesale

France and Luxembourg complete CBDC experiment

The central banks of France and Luxembourg have used an experimental CBDC to settle a EUR100 million digital native bond.

30 November 2022

News/sustainable

Sustainable Finance Live: How can nature be made bankable?

How are different financial institutions approaching climate strategy and sustainable investment? The potential for sustainable investment was explored in the keynote presentation: How can nature be made bankable? by founder of ResponsibleRisk Richard Peers and CEO of sustainable investment company Mirova, Philippe Zaouati.

29 November 2022

Company update/people

Contour hires JPMorgan's Chetan Talwar as head of sales

Contour, the digital trade finance network, has appointed Chetan Talwar to the role of Head of Global Sales.

29 November 2022

News/markets

DBS completes repo transaction on JPMorgan's Onyx

DBS has become the first bank in Asia to conduct an intraday repo transaction on JPMorgan's blockchain network Onyx, using the US bank's JPM Coin digital token to complete instant settlements and maturity of the transactions within hours instead of the current industry norm of one to two working days.

23 November 2022

News/payments

NextGen Nordics 2023 agenda announced

NextGen Nordics will return on 25th April 2023 to Stockholm, Sweden and the timing of this event could not be better placed.

23 November 2022

Company update/markets

BondbloX and TransFICC sign MOU

TransFICC and BondbloX Bond Exchange have signed an MOU to enable sell-side banks to trade digital bonds.

22 November 2022

Company update/markets

Finastra onboards Fragmos Chain’s blockchain platform for OTC derivatives market

Today Finastra announced a collaboration with Fragmos Chain, a blockchain platform which digitalizes interactions between financial institutions, to provide Finastra customers with out-of-the-box integration with Finastra Summit, its over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market solution.

22 November 2022

News/markets

Quant and UST join forces to push tokenisation

Blockchain outfit Quant is teaming up with UST to push the adoption of institutional digital assets by offering technical integration and tokenisation services to central and commercial banks and capital markets participants.

22 November 2022

Company update/markets

Allfunds Blockchain streamlines product design

Allfunds Blockchain, the arm of Allfunds (AMS:ALLFG) specialized in blockchain technology and its application in the development of solutions for the fund industry, has expanded the capabilities of its FAST solution to digitize the process of switching mutual fund portfolios between financial providers.

21 November 2022

Company update/payments

HSBC and Wells Fargo expand DLT solution to include offshore Yuan

HSBC Bank and Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) today announced that the blockchain-based solution they are using for bilateral FX settlements is expanding to include the offshore Yuan (CNH).

18 November 2022

Company update/crypto

IOG and University of Edinburgh to build standard metric for crypto decentralisation

Input Output Global, Inc. (IOG), one of the builders of Cardano, the leading proof of stake blockchain, has partnered with the University of Edinburgh, one of the most highly rated academic institutions in the United Kingdom, to develop the blockchain industry’s first ‘decentralization index’.

18 November 2022

News/crypto

Want to own a portion of Warhol's Four Marilyns? Sign up with Sygnum

Digital asset bank Sygnum has tokenized an iconic Four Marilyns painting by Andy Warhol, enabling investors to stake a claim to co-onwership under the Swiss DLT legal framework.

18 November 2022

News/markets

ASX takes A$250m hit after scrapping DLT-based Chess replacement project

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is pulling the plug on its much-delayed blockchain-based post-trade network, writing off about A$250 million.

18 November 2022