Investment management firm SEI has partnered with London-based blockchain and regtech company Coinfirm to develop a solution that will reshape the U.K.’s asset transfer market and create a new digital industry standard.

Coinfirm was one of the first participants in SEI’s regulation technology incubator, Codify, which launched earlier this year.

Under this partnership, the companies will work together to create a proposition that harnesses blockchain technology to transform the asset transfer market, which is currently regarded as costly and inefficient. The key objective of the initiative is to create a new asset transfer industry benchmark against which others competing in the space can be evaluated in terms of efficiency, costs, and security.

“This solution could potentially transform the asset transfer market in the U.K -- significantly improving efficiency, service, and control, while simultaneously reducing costs and risk,” Brett Williams, Managing Director, SEI Wealth Platform, U.K. Private Banking, said. “The asset transfer market is widely regarded as one of the most expensive and error-prone parts of the asset management value chain, with much of it still involving a great deal of manual procedures. The work we are doing with Coinfirm will help redefine asset transfers processing, with a view to setting a new standard by which all U.K. wealth and asset managers can evaluate their own systems and processes.”

Following an initial development period, SEI and Coinfirm plan to start a pilot programme with one of SEI’s existing U.K. clients before rolling out the solution to other clients and the wider market in 2018.

“What Coinfirm and SEI are doing together through our blockchain solution is not only a legitimate, living example of how this technology is helping solve core problems, but also setting a new standard for the industry as a whole. SEI has really placed itself at the forefront with this initiative, and we are happy to add a company of this calibre to the growing list of financial players with which we work,” Pawel Kuskowski, CEO and Co-Founder, Coinfirm, added.

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