Today Italian fund manager AcomeA SGR announced the completion of a test of the FundsDLT platform. FundsDLT is a blockchain fund management platform providing transparency between retail investors, distributors and asset managers.
The platform was developed by Fundsquare, a subsidiary of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange together with IT company InTech and KPMG as an advisor.
AcomeA SGR, an independent fund manager, said the aim is to make asset management more accessible. The company worked with Italian company Fabrick for the API and banking aspect.
Giordano Martinelli, VP of AcomeA said: “The importance of the test lies not only in the technical aspects; the collaboration with Fundsquare and Fabrik demonstrates the value of cooperation in the fintech sector; working together, we are able to bring considerable benefits to the entire asset management industry and to savers. Currently, the whole chain of purchase of mutual fund shares is quite long.”
This test comes just a month after Credit Suisse Asset Management processed a live end-to-end fund transactions on the FundsDLT platform with Banco Best, which was also a Proof of Concept.
“The project demonstrated the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of a new generation ecosystem for processing orders for investment funds, where the various players involved in the distribution process [of] funds can interoperate and offer a digital front-to-back experience to end customers,” said Paolo Brignardello, Head of Product Management at Fundsquare, talking about the AcomeA test.
Brignardello concluded: “We share the general objective of making access to investment funds cheaper and easier”.
Other blockchain initiatives for fund management
Calastone is a major player in fund management and has plans to migrate to a blockchain-based platform in May 2019. The company process £170 billion of transactions per month.
New York startup Symbiont is working with giant fund manager Vanguard to use blockchain for distributing trade index data for tracker funds. London-based SETL has a blockchain record-keeping system for funds called IZNES. Its public announcements indicate some traction in France. However, SETL recently sought voluntary protection from its creditors.
In September 2017 last year Swedish bank SEB teamed up with Nasdaq to test a fund trading platform.
