While the maturity of blockchain discussions and advances are at different stages of development around the world, blockchain is said to be at the height of the Gartner hype cycle. This implies that 2017 will be the year where disillusionment with the technology begins. However, 2017 may also see some real breakthroughs with its application and the emergence of pockets of the first concrete results.
A central securities depositories (CSDs) consortium has been founded 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.
South African central securities depository Strate and Belgium’s Euroclear are planning a new collaboration to make South Africa’s mutual fund transactions more electronic –including the creation of a centrally hosted mutual fund settlement and custody platform.
