Today the DTCC confirmed it has closed the acquisition of Securrency, the tokenization technology firm. The Securrency brand is being dropped and the solution is now part of DTCC Digital Assets. Given the deal was announced in mid-October, that’s quick for a large acquirer.
The new division reports to Lynn Bishop, Managing Director and Chief Information Officer. Nadine Chakar, former CEO of Securrency, is the global head of DTCC Digital Assets. She sits on the 12-strong DTCC management committee alongside Ms. Bishop.
“We look forward to providing global leadership to establish a robust digital infrastructure that protects the safety and soundness of financial markets and delivers on the enormous promise and potential of institutional DeFi in the coming years,” said Frank La Salla, DTCC President, CEO and Director.
Securrency’s technology will continue to be offered under license, as it is currently. WisdomTree Prime powers its digital assets offering using Securrency technology.
In September, Clearstream, the DTCC and Euroclear penned a paper outlining why they should be digital asset coordinators. Currently, numerous independent tokenization platforms lack interoperability. We did a quick analysis of the pros and cons of these institutions taking a leading role.
Since that announcement, the DTCC acquired Securrency and also joined the latest funding of Fnality. The latter is the wholesale payment system for securities settlement underpinned by blockchain and central bank cash.
Meanwhile, last year DTCC launched Project Ion, a post trade stock settlement solution. It runs in parallel with DTC’s classic settlement system which remains the system of record, presumably to adhere to SEC requirements. That solution runs on R3’s Corda enterprise blockchain.
This year the DTCC launched a permissioned blockchain testnet for various trials, which uses Hyperleder Besu, the Ethereum compatible blockchain.
