Yesterday Natwest Markets announced the UK bank has created a new blockchain division, Digital Capital Markets, headed by Christopher Agathangelou, who is also Head of Flow Credit.
The unit will focus on credit and rates products underpinned by blockchain, rolling them out through “digital channels and currencies”.
Natwest joins several other banks ramping up their blockchain activities. In the early days of enterprise blockchain, the bank was one of the leaders. However, in 2018 its Head of Emerging Technology Richard Crook departed along with three colleagues to create LAB577, a boutique DLT development house. It launched DASL, a platform that helps institutions to issue and manage tokenized investments, and is doing rather well.
Also in 2018, Natwest integrated with Finastra’s Fusion LenderComm, a blockchain network for syndicated lending.
More recently Natwest was involved in the intraday FX trials with blockchain platform Finteum. And it’s also part of a PvP trial of CLSNet, an FX platform underpinned by blockchain (although the PvP trial isn’t blockchain-based).
