Digital Asset Holdings, a developer of distributed ledger technology (DLT) for the financial services industry, and SIX Securities Services, the post-trade infrastructure operator for the Swiss financial sector, have entered into a partnership and announced plans to develop a proof-of-concept that will demonstrate the commercial viability of DLT across the Swiss financial market, with an initial prototype for securities lifecycle processing.

The initial phase of the project will demonstrate the ability to build and incorporate distributed, encrypted, straight through processing tools into existing securities transaction flows, and propose a roadmap for extending this to a production-ready service. As part of the alliance, the two firms will develop a roadmap for future opportunities spanning the whole market infrastructure value chain.

“The proof of concept will extend beyond the scope of the prototype, and Digital Asset will develop a product roadmap for future opportunities to include a wide range of applications that demonstrate how current, segregated processes could be streamlined and made more efficient for SIX Securities Services and the post-trade ecosystem as a whole”, the official release said.

SIX Securities Services selected Digital Asset as the business and technology partner for the design of a solution for the Swiss market after a competitive evaluation process.

"Distributed ledger technology and its potential role in post trading is key to our business. We need to understand it, and more importantly, its applicability and future flexibility in order to keep ahead of the game”, Thomas Zeeb, Division CEO SIX Securities Services, said. “Partnering with Digital Asset is a way to accelerate our own development plans and leverage their experience in this area."

SIX Securities Services has already made significant strides in exploring distributed ledger technologies and currently has a prototype for Corporate Actions processing on display at Sibos, in Geneva from 26-29 October, 2016.

"Partnering with SIX brings this cutting edge technology another step closer to commercial reality,” said Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset. “We believe this collaboration will provide exciting opportunities for SIX and its customers while reducing inefficiency, cost and risk in the financial services ecosystem."