Today, Switzerland’s SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) announced the appointment of Tim Grant as the new Head of Business.
Grant was the co-founder and CEO of ConsenSys backed startup DrumG. Last year Grant’s startup which raised $6.5m in 2018, claimed to have major banks trialing its Titanium solution for OTC trading and data and previously mentioned Credit Suisse as a participant. However, a SIX spokesperson told Ledger Insights that Grant had left DrumG.
SDX, owned by the SIX Group, unveiled a prototype last year and is expected to launch later this year. It aims to offer end-to-end digital asset services such as trading, settlement and custody. In the past few months, the company has inked some strategic partnerships and acquired stakes in blockchain firms to support the development of the SDX.
Tim Grant has expertise in capital markets and has previously worked in financial services as the head of the research lab at enterprise blockchain firm R3, and Managing Director at UBS O’Connor and UBS Investment Bank. SDX believes Grant’s expertise in enterprise-grade distributed ledger solutions for financial services will help scale SDX.
“Tim has a comprehensive background in both the new and old worlds of capital markets innovation,” said Thomas Zeeb, Head Securities & Exchanges at SIX Group, and Chairman of SDX. “This background is an essential prerequisite to successfully lead the development of SDX and to fulfil SIX’s growth ambition to build the financial ecosystem of the future.”
In terms of the SDX team, the venture lost its CEO last year, apparently over strategic differences. SIX executive Tomas Kindler is currently the interim CEO.
Built using R3’s Corda, SDX is poised to become an institutional-grade digital asset trading platform and aims to transform the financial services industry. Its ambition appears to extend from tokenizing shares for large corporations such as Nestle and Novartis to SMEs. Last year SDX invested in Swisscom backed daura, which tokenizes SME shares.
Swisscom was previously working with Deutsche Börse for digital assets, but it’s now working with SDX.
Last month, SIX announced it was offering its partners a stake of up to 30% in SDX, a model similar to its own. SIX is owned by 120 financial institutions, who are also the primary users of its services.
SIX is also working with Citibank, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse for developing applications on SDX. It suggested that the banks may invest in SDX.
Most recently, SIX announced an investment in San Francisco-based Omniex, which provides a trading platform for digital assets, including cryptocurrencies.
