R3 Corda, Swiss Stock Exchange SIX announces the launch of the blockchain platform

The Swiss stock exchange operator SIX Group announced the selection of R3's Corda Enterprise Edition blockchain for the construction of its digital asset trading, settlement and hosting service platform. It is reported that one of the areas that the SIX Group is concerned with is dealing with the so-called Securities Pass (STO).

The SIX Group revealed to CoinDesk that they had decided to choose R3 Corda after spending a lot of time solving various distributed ledger technology (DLT) stack issues.

Sven Roth, chief digital officer of the SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), told reporters that Corda has crossed the insurance and other fields outside the capital market and extended to areas such as identity, which is one of the factors in choosing Corda. He told reporters:

This was very important to us because when we assessed different vendors, some of them were very focused on niche offerings and limited in their scope to very specific areas, such as post-trade for instance, and we didn’t want to be limited to just that area of expertise. We assessed a lot of vendors and technology stacks - all the ones you can imagine.

As stated in July last year, SDX's goal is to create a regulated trading platform for digital assets, starting with stocks and then exploring other tradable instruments.

Roth revealed that the platform is expected to be launched in the second half of 2019, starting with classic trading assets such as stocks, bonds, funds and structured products.

Another area of ​​concern for the SIX Group is the handling of the so-called Securities Pass (STO). In fact, in an interview with Reuters last month, Romeo Lacher, chairman of the SIX Group, said that the exchange plans to raise some funds through STO.
A representative of the group said that this was the issue he was considering, but he did not add more details about the content of the plan. Roth confirmed that, in general, the STO's regulatory model will be at the heart of the project.

He added that in order to provide a reasonable MVP [minimum viable product], it is necessary to achieve a balance, but do not invest too much in the launch.

Corda Enterprise Edition will usher in more heavyweight users

Unlike the open source version of Corda, Corda Enterprise is an enterprise blockchain, and this paid version of the software is a major victory for R3. Last week, it was reported that blockchain builder MonetaGo had converted its infrastructure from Hyperledger Fabric to Corda.

Speaking of the SIX Group's deal, R3 Managing Director Charley Cooper said:

The first thing that’s important is the fact that a mainstream influential financial market infrastructure player has decided to launch an exchange for digital assets and do it on blockchain technology.

Cooper went on to say that the deal is a strong validation of Corda's approach to business building, adding that "in order for these platforms to work for highly complex and heavily regulated markets and participants, you can't use the traditional public-chain version. And try to transform it to handle the business needs around privacy and scalability."

It is reported that the first commercial license of Corda Enterprise Edition was obtained by Dutch Bank ING last year, but this transaction is the first time R3 sells to Financial Market Infrastructure (FMI) providers.

(Another ongoing project may come from a recent proof of concept with Swift that integrates the Corda Settler application, an open source payment engine built by r3.)

Cooper pointed out that many R3 members and investors are also trading members of the SIX Stock Exchange, and they are ready to take advantage of these combined technologies.

The list includes ABN Amro, Barclays Bank, BNP Paribas, Citibank, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, National Bank of France, Royal Bank of Scotland, Industrial Bank and UBS.