Today FundsDLT announced that it has struck a deal with Standard Chartered which will use its blockchain software to offer fund transfer agency services. Standard Chartered will initially target asset managers in the Middle East and North Africa.
FundsDLT was founded by the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and acquired by the Deutsche Börse Group in August. It has developed a transfer agency and fund distribution platform.
The key benefits of the software are efficiency and cost reductions. It enables asset managers, distributors and client investors to share data in a permissioned fashion. Additionally, it supports real-time cash collection.
“We continuously look to deliver innovative solutions that can support asset managers and their clients in achieving both cost and processing efficiencies,” said Ying Ying Tan, Global Head of Products – Financing & Securities Services at Standard Chartered. “Our collaboration with FundsDLT builds on this objective by transforming traditional transfer agency services into a model that offers streamlined and accelerated processes as well as reduced operational cost.”
This is the second blockchain fund related announcement from Standard Chartered today. SC Ventures, a bank subsidiary, has incubated Libeara, a software tokenization platform. Libeara announced its first planned offering in collaboration with asset manager Fundbridge Capital is to tokenize a Singapore dollar government bond fund.
Blockchain benefits: efficiency, liquidity, personalization
The two initiatives address complementary opportunities in the funds sector. On the one hand, there is the ability to tokenize funds to enable fractional investment and hence greater liquidity. On the other hand, blockchain can change the way asset managers do their work.
That’s not only the efficiencies that FundsDLT will offer Standard Chartered’s clients. Today asset managers have limited visibility about the end investors. So sharing data opens up the potential for asset managers to offer greater personalization. That’s even more so if the underlying assets within the fund are also tokenized.
Carlyle-owned fund distribution platform Calastone has been pushing this vision for years. It was the first mover in the funds sector, integrating blockchain into part of its platform back in 2019. Now it’s working with Schroders as part of a Singapore pilot to bring its vision to reality.
