After Nasdaq, BNP Paribas announces record-keeping with blockchain
For the first time in France, a major bank has announced a concrete use of blockchain. BNP Paribas Securities Services, subsidiary of BNP Paribas Group, will be partnering with investment platform SmartAngels in a “major step” in advancing crowdfunding as the process will leverage distributed ledger technology (like blockchain). The project is to be launched […]
For the first time in France, a major bank has announced a concrete use of blockchain.
BNP Paribas Securities Services, subsidiary of BNP Paribas Group, will be partnering with investment platform SmartAngels in a “major step” in advancing crowdfunding as the process will leverage distributed ledger technology (like blockchain).
The project is to be launched in 2016 H2 as the company awaits regulatory approval, but will allow BNP Paribas to develop and manage a registry for shares in private companies using DLT, automatically registering securities issued by SmartAngels, that will serve as a secondary market for shares registered on the BNP platform.
“This is a major innovation for the custody and account-keeping of unlisted securities”, said Philippe Ruault, head of product for clearing at BNP Paribas.
The press release added: “Investor payments will be processed immediately and e-certificates will be issued to them straight away. Financial transactions made via the platform will therefore be performed simply, quickly, securely and for a lower cost.”
In the latter part of March, BNP Paribas had announced the L’Atelier BNP Paribas program, a FinTech accelerator embarking eight startups from all fields of the financial sector: p2p insurance, RegTech, AI, Big Data, cloud applications, and payments.
At the time, Jacques d’Estais, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of the BNP Paribas Group and Head of International Financial Services, said: “I’m delighted to see a number of the Bank’s businesses working hand-in-hand with young startups. In our drive to invent the bank of tomorrow we can rely on the considerable resources of the BNP Paribas Group but we are also determined to make use of the skills of other players who are keen to improve the customer journey.”
In last October’s Money20/20, Nasdaq had formally announced a similar project to the BNP Paribas-SmartAngels. Nasdaq Linq was created as a management tool for shares in order to do an automatic record-keeping instead of manual pen-and-paper or spreadsheet that risk human error, and enabling firms to have access to better use of data for analysis and more transparency for everyone.
