By
Tolu Ajiboye
April 5th, 2024
IBM, CLS, and nine financial institutions are testing a new platform which can make it easier for banks to access distributed ledger technology (DLT) solutions from fintech and software providers.
American multinational technology company IBM and nine financial institutions, including Barclays Plc and Citigroup Inc, have announced their partnership with the aim to work on LedgerConnect, the platform offering applications and services provided by different vendors in the financial services industry.
Today capital markets are saturated with multiple systems performing the same business functions and with siloed pockets of data that require expensive reconciliation processes, that’s why more and more financial institutions are trying to implement DLT into their operations. DLT can help reduce these issues and speed up conducting business by providing a single, shared version of events and one implementation of common business functions. It seems good, however, creating and operating own unique DLT infrastructure for multiple services is cost- and time-consuming for any vendor, bank, or consortium. To solve this problem and make it easier and cheaper for financial firms to use blockchain-based software, LedgerConnect has been created.
LedgerConnect is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform based on the same model as consumer app stores. It has been designed to enable banks buy and sell side firms, FinTechs and software vendors to deploy, share and consume services hosted on a shared distributed ledger network on which multiple services can be deployed and consumed. The developers believe that LedgerConnect can help speed up blockchain adoption by making it more readily available for financial institutions. As a single shared and highly secured network, LegderConnect allows financial institutions to focus on transforming business processes rather than creating multiple new blockchain applications, networks and services.
According to the press release, LedgerConnect operates on a private permissioned network based on the IBM Blockchain Platform and Hyperledger Fabric technology.
The platform has been developed by IBM, and such financial institutions as Barclays, Citi, Baton Systems, Calypso, Copp Clark, IBM, MPhasis, OpenRisk, SynSwap, and Persistent Systems. Meanwhile for IBM, it is not the first experience in developing blockchain platforms. As was previously reported by CoinSpeaker, IBM Blockchain hosted first cross-border trades conducted by major European banks earlier in July.
Marie Wieck, general manager of IBM Blockchain, said:
“Together IBM and CLS have been early pioneers in advancing blockchain solutions for the financial services space. Building on the success of CLSNet and leveraging the strong relationship CLS has with the world’s leading financial institutions, LedgerConnect is uniquely positioned as a blockchain marketplace for the financial services industry, which will accelerate innovation across the ecosystem with value added services for blockchain networks.”
Alan Marquard, CLS Chief Strategy and Development Officer, commented on LedgerConnect as well:
“LedgerConnect is part of CLS’s strategy to explore how we can provide safe and robust solutions that create efficiencies and reduce risk for a diverse range of firms operating in the financial markets. We expect LedgerConnect to deliver enhanced efficiencies and economies of scale over single-purpose distributed ledger networks.”
Currently, the platform is being tested. Support for additional ledger technologies may be provided based on market demand and developments in the future.