Broadridge, the institutional financial technology provider, has partnered with Coinbase to make it easier for buy-side institutions to access cryptocurrencies. The deal enables interoperability between Coinbase Prime and Broadridge’s NYFIX order routing network.
NYFIX uses the FIX protocol, which is industry standard in TradFi but not in the cryptocurrency sector, which tends to use fintech APIs for connectivity. Initially, the NYFIX Coinbase integration is only available to US-based institutions.
Coinbase Prime doesn’t purely provide access to the cryptocurrency exchange but enables broader liquidity by routing orders to other crypto market participants, with Coinbase acting as the Prime broker. Additionally, it includes custody services which we believe is part of Coinbase Custody Trust Company, a trust company regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services.
“Institutions are increasingly interested in the crypto space but trading assets has remained a challenge because messaging is only available through proprietary API interfaces,” said Ray Tierney, President of Broadridge Trading and Connectivity Solutions. “Now, through Coinbase’s deep access to liquidity and NYFIX’s extensive market reach, we can integrate more than two thousand clients to bring crypto trading to the institutional market.”
Last month Coinbase announced that BlackRock had integrated with its platform.
For its part, Broadridge has been active in blockchain for years. It runs a conventional system that services the $4.5 trillion US Treasury repo market, connecting 20 of the 24 primary dealers. Last June, it launched its distributed ledger repo (DLR) platform that uses tokenization to enable atomic settlement and intraday transactions. It processed $31 billion in transactions during the first week, with participants including Natixis, Societe Generale and UBS.
Additionally, Broadridge acquired a blockchain-based platform for private equity fund management from Northern Trust and developed it further as part of its Private Market Hub.
