Fireblocks takes steps to further onboard banks onto enterprise digital asset platform

Fireblocks has expanded its MPC-CMP wallet and key management technology to include support for Hardware Security Models (HSMs) and public and private cloud, including Thales, Securosys, AWS, GCP, and Alibaba Cloud.

The enterprise platform to manage digital asset operations has made these enhancements to allow banks and financial institutions to leverage Fireblocks’ industry-leading security and technology stack to quickly bring their digital asset initiatives into production while meeting their risk, compliance, and regulatory requirements.

Fireblocks works with BNY Mellon, BNPP, ANZ, NAB, ABN AMRO, BTG, TASE, SIX

In its official statement, Fireblocks listed several recognized banks and financial institutions as trusted partners in bringing their digital asset strategies to production, including BNY Mellon, BNP Paribas, ANZ Bank, NAB, ABN AMRO, BTG Pactual, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and SIX Digital Exchange.

The abovementioned FIs have tapped Fireblocks to build new digital asset custody, trading, clearing, and settlement services, tokenization of financial products such as tokenized fiat, central bank digital currencies (CBDC), carbon credits, and more.

Fireblocks allows banks, asset managers, financial market infrastructure, and central banks to easily deploy its platform in their existing IT infrastructure with an expanded range of support that includes:

• HSM support with an open interface to leverage leading providers such as Thales, Securosys, and other compatible HSMs
• Expanded support for cloud-based secure enclaves, including AWS Nitro and GCP, and Alibaba Cloud SGX, in addition to Fireblocks’ existing Azure SGX support
• Enable customers to host all MPC key shares across multiple servers in their data centers and cloud
• New cloud data centers across the EU, Switzerland, and Hong Kong along with Fireblocks’ current cloud data centers in the US
• Dedicated single-tenant cloud environment

Michael Shaulov, Co-founder and CEO of Fireblocks, said: “From the very beginning, the Fireblocks platform was created and designed to be business-first. We understand the risk requirements in the bank at an architectural level and we have strategically developed components to make sure that our customers can get from proof-of-concept to production in the shortest timeframe possible. In the last three years, Fireblocks has been working with some of the most well-known banks and financial institutions at the cutting edge of the digital asset and crypto industry. To date, we’ve successfully brought 50 banks into the digital asset space, so we’re excited to be able to further our commitment to this segment by providing the right infrastructure support for any bank or financial institution to bring their digital asset offering to market.”

Orly Grinfeld, EVP, Head of Clearing at Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, said: “With Fireblocks, we were able to take our digital treasury bond initiative — Project Eden — from ideation to go-live in five months. We were impressed with their ability to work with us and meet our extensive compliance and security requirements. “Their world-class security operations and modular infrastructure allowed us to deploy wallets to our primary dealers, which included international banks like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and JP Morgan. Not only were we able to ensure that the entire workflow operations were secure, but that all the vendors were streamlined and deployed in order to bring Eden live quickly.”

Sarthak Pattanaik, CIO, Digital Assets, Treasury Services, Clearance and Collateral Management at BNY Mellon, said: “As the financial ecosystem evolves, we are focused on enhancing our core capabilities by exploring digital technologies and processes, including blockchain. We look forward to our continued collaboration with Fireblocks and leveraging their best-in-class services that support our ongoing efforts to address the needs of our institutional clients.”

Fireblocks Network, APIs, tokenization, and Policy Engine

Foundational to the ecosystem is the Fireblocks Network, which connects the largest consortium of regulated financial institutions that have implemented digital assets on the blockchain.

The connectivity to the Fireblocks Network allows companies to execute their business strategies almost immediately by putting them in touch with exchanges, market makers, and other distribution partners such as private banks or fintech platforms.

Fireblocks APIs also enable direct integration with the world’s leading core banking systems, including Temenos, Avaloq, and FIS, further expanding the ecosystem’s reach.

In addition, the platform boasts tokenization capabilities that support the end-to-end lifecycle management for tokenized assets, including smart contract management, minting and burning, distribution, and custody across public, private, and permissioned blockchains. This provides banks with full control over their digital assets as they engage with their counterparties.

The Policy Engine governs workflows within the Fireblocks console and gives owners full control to secure actions against internal collusion, human error, and external attacks. Customers may also integrate Fireblocks compliance partners directly into the Policy Engine to automate transaction screening workflows to meet evolving digital asset regulatory requirements and address the latest industry threats, the firm explained.