Japan Exchange Group unveils blockchain consortium
Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), Osaka Exchange OSE) and Japan Securities Clearing Corporation (JSCC) will form a blockchain consortium of Japanese financial institutions.
All three are part of Japan Exchange Group (JPX) and will continue to conduct proof-of-concept (PoC) testing based on past findings and discuss the possibility of applying blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) to capital market infrastructure from technical and operational perspectives.
JPX set up an internal research group late last year to study the applicability of DLT to capital market infrastructure. It came up with the same results as everyone else, namely that DLT has “potential” but “further research and development is still needed”.
TSE will create a test environment for PoC using Hyperledger’s open source platform, in co-operation with IBM Japan. The testing will start in spring 2017.
The consortium will do the same as all the others that clutter the fintech arena – such as “seek participation from a wide range of Japanese financial institutions” etc etc.
JPX says it will “consider a structure for efficient information sharing between the DLT engineer community and financial institutions through efforts such as training on DLT technology by DLT engineers and training on operational workflows by financial institutions”. See image below:
Concept diagram of PoC testing by financial institution consortium
They’re all at it
Unsurprisingly, other blockchain consortia have news to share. Here are a few.
The name may not be catchy but “The Japan Bank Consortium to Centrally Provide Domestic and Cross-border Payments” officially launched with 42 member banks. The new network will use Ripple’s blockchain for payments and settlement.
A central securities depositories (CSDs) consortium was founded this autumn to help emerging market CSDs investigate and take advantage of new technologies such as blockchain. Led by Russia’s CSD, National Settlement Depository (NSD) and South Africa’s Strate, the consortium will initially focus on working with CSDs in Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia.
Last year, post-trade technology company Kynetix launched a blockchain consortium focused on using DLT in commodities markets.
