Author: admin@fundsdlt.onmicrosoft.com

Posted on

Italian asset manager AcomeA successfully tests direct to consumer (D2C) distribution using blockchain infrastructure

PRESS RELEASE, 18 MARCH 2019 – AcomeA SGR, a leading Italian asset management company, has successfully completed an investment fund shares transaction test and related payment through Fundsquare’s blockchain-based infrastructure FundsDLT and the Italian API platform Fabrick.

The transaction allowed AcomeA SGR to carry out, through its Gimme5 service for direct distribution of funds to savers, real-time subscription and redemption transactions of shares of investment funds and related payments, thanks to the use of smart contracts and connections via an API to the banking network.

The test demonstrated the efficiency and cost savings of a new generation ecosystem for processing D2C orders in investment funds, where the various actors involved in the distribution process can interoperate and offer a digital front-to-back experience to final customers.

Giordano Martinelli, Vice President and Head of technology at AcomeA SGR emphasizes: “AcomeA SGR is proud to be among the pioneers in Italy in the use of blockchain for the asset management sector. The project is part of the series of activities that AcomeA has always carried out to simplify and make the world of asset management more accessible. The importance of the test lies not only in the technical aspects; the collaboration with Fundsquare and Fabrik demonstrates the value of cooperation in the Fintech sector; working together we are able to bring notable benefits not only to operators in the asset management sector, but above all also to savers.”

The project was carried out in collaboration with Fundsquare, for the FundsDLT part, and with Fabrick for the API and banking part.

Giulio Rattone, Fabrick’s Head of Product Dev Platform added: “The test concluded is a concrete example of the great value that can generate the union between knowledge of the processes and dynamics of the financial world, the skills on the most advanced technologies and the vision on new business and management models. A meeting point that represents the very essence of the ecosystem that Fabrick feeds around itself.”

Olivier Portenseigne, Fundsquare Managing Director concluded: “European fund actors continue to move towards the future with ongoing innovation in the D2C space. The FundsDLT initiative aims to help investment fund companies improve their buyer journeys, reduce costs, increase efficiency and ultimately create value for investors.”

– END –

Posted on

Banco Best and Credit Suisse Asset Management process end-to-end fund transactions using blockchain-based infrastructure FundsDLT

PRESS RELEASE – 7 February 2019 – Banco Best and Credit Suisse Asset Management successfully processed live end-to-end fund transactions, using FundsDLT, a blockchain-based decentralized platform for fund transaction processing.

The cross-border distribution of an investment fund over blockchain demonstrated the solidity of a new model that proved to be more efficient, scalable, and timely in processing, and marks another milestone for transforming fund distribution. The transactions included every part of the fund trade process, from delivery of the order to the processing of the trade.

Carlos Almeida, Director of Investments, Banco Best commented: “This proof of concept is a great achievement and reinforces Banco Best’s commitment to be ahead of the curve. We want to be involved in blockchain technology to work together with all stakeholders in order to adapt and seize new opportunities in our business model, with the ambition to improve the customer experience and to promote financial inclusion.“

For this project, Banco Best developed the API integration and created a dedicated app to understand the full impact of the client experience. This innovation reduces the time between the request and the settlement of an order in a substantial way.

This proof of concept also makes Credit Suisse Fund Services (Luxembourg) SA one of the first asset servicing providers to process a full end-to-end fund transaction using blockchain, integrated within its core platforms.

Claude Metz, Head of Shareholder Services, Credit Suisse Fund Services (Luxembourg) SA, said: “Integration with FundsDLT was very efficient and straight-forward. Blockchain technology in connection with potential mutualized KYC (know your client) servicing will be a game changer for the investment funds business. This initiative benefits investors, distributors and transfer agents greatly from an operational efficiency standpoint, and we are only at the beginning of this most promising journey.”

Pascal Nägeli, Chief Digital Officer at Credit Suisse Asset Management stated: “We continuously seek to improve performance for our clients. As part of our digitalization journey, we consider blockchain technology as a great lever to increase efficiency. With the successful completion of real, live transactions, we were able to prove that considerable benefits can be achieved with distributed ledger technology for both clients and asset managers.”

Olivier Portenseigne of Fundsquare concludes: “Our goal is to collaborate with major players from the fund industry so as to capitalize on the benefits that blockchain technology brings. We are delighted to see a Portuguese innovative bank linking with Credit Suisse Asset Management and test our platform to explore the value that this new infrastructure can deliver. FundsDLT is an international initiative that streamlines a number of activities within the fund distribution value chain, and as a consequence, will reduce costs for the benefits of investors across fund and investor domiciles.”

– END –

Notes to editors

About FundsDLT

FundsDLT is being developed to enable asset managers to sell funds through a new distribution channel, while significantly reducing administration costs and the time to process transactions for both asset managers and other asset servicers. FundsDLT will streamline a range of fund administration and order-routing tasks by using blockchain to automate several processes in a secure manner. The model is applicable to a wide range of funds and does not depend on the jurisdiction.
For more info on FundsDLT, please visit: http://www.fundsdlt.net

About Banco Best

Best is a Bank based in Portugal expert in Banking, Asset Management and Trading, with financial products and services in a global scale, based on a technological state-of-art platform to manage everyday banking, invest and trade in a quick and simple way. The wide range of investment products, including more than 3,000 funds managed by more than 65 international management companies, reflects its independent and highly diversified character, as well as the strong dynamics of innovation, and was awarded for ‘Financial Innovation’ in the Euronext Lisbon Awards 2018. With omnichannel integration (web, mobile, contact centre) and total accessibility, it also has a vast network of professionals expert in financial markets with high mobility and availability.
Know more about Best in www.bancobest.pt

About Fundsquare

Fundsquare is a subsidiary of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange that provides services to substantially support and standardise cross-border distribution of investment funds. The main objective of this utility is to facilitate the relationships between professional investors and funds through a flexible and responsive infrastructure to enable operational effectiveness by offering order routing management, information and regulatory compliance services.
More information at: www.fundsquare.net

Press Contacts

Banco Best
Elisabete Santos
Tel: +351 218 839 353
Mail: mesantos@bancobest.pt

Fundsquare S.A.
Paolo Brignardello
Tel: +352  28370528
Mail: paolo.brignardello@fundsquare.net

Posted on

BNP Paribas completes end to end transaction test using blockchain

PRESS RELEASE – 10 January 2018 – BNP Paribas Asset Management successfully completed a full end-to-end fund transaction test late last year, using blockchain technology.

The test has been conducted leveraging on BNP Paribas Securities Services’ blockchain programme, Fund Link, and FundsDLT, a blockchain based decentralized platform for fund transaction processing, which has been developed through collaboration between Fundsquare (a subsidiary of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange), InTech (a subsidiary of POST Group) and KPMG Luxembourg.

The test demonstrated that Fund Link is able to connect with other blockchains, opening the door to a new model of interoperability and marks a key milestone for fund distribution. The transaction included each part of the fund trade process, from delivery of the order to the processing of the trade.

BNP Paribas Asset Management is among the first leading global asset managers to take part in this prototype testing. This new development is fully in line with its growth plan, which puts innovation and technology at the heart of its strategy, making BNP Paribas Asset Management a leading provider of digital investment services to support the distribution of its funds.

Fabrice Silberzan, Chief Operating Officer, BNP Paribas Asset Management commented:

“We have a unique opportunity to continue shaping the future of the asset management industry using digital technology, and transform the fund distribution process. While investors will benefit from reduced transaction time, we will also profit from a sleeker, more streamlined system underpinned by technology and relevant for all fund types and geographies.”

The test also makes BNP Paribas Securities Services one of the first asset servicing providers to process a full end-to-end fund transaction using blockchain technology which is integrated within its core platforms.

Arnaud Claudon, Head of Asset Managers, BNP Paribas Securities Services, said:

“This is a key milestone in our Fund Link project as it showcases the interoperability of our platform, something which will be key to us moving forward. This transaction is a continuation of the work we started earlier last year and is fully aligned with our goal of co-creating with external partners and the wider market.”
​

Said Fihri of KPMG Luxembourg explained:

“The pool of asset managers using FundsDLT to perform test transactions is expanding. The participation of leading asset managers like BNP Paribas Asset Management is a clear indication of the platform’s growing maturity, and firms from further afield – the US, UK and Germany – have also entered into discussions with the FundsDLT team. There’s a real sense of excitement about the project, and a feeling that FundsDLT is playing a role in shaping the fund distribution landscape.”
​

Olivier Portenseigne of Fundsquare concluded:

“Our goal is to collaborate with major players from the fund industry so as to capitalise on the benefits that blockchain technology brings. We are delighted to see BNP Paribas Asset Management come on board as a frontrunner in pioneering and testing our platform. FundsDLT is an international initiative that streamlines a number of activities within the fund distribution value chain, and as a consequence, will reduce costs for the benefits of investors across fund and investor domiciles. This will certainly bring a competitive advantage to early joiners.”

– END –

About FundsDLT

FundsDLT is the result of collaboration between Fundsquare (a subsidiary of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange), InTech (a subsidiary of POST Group) and KPMG Luxembourg. The platform is being developed to enable asset managers to sell funds through a new distribution channel, while significantly reducing administration costs and the time to process transactions for both asset managers and other asset servicers. FundsDLT will streamline a range of fund administration and order-routing tasks by using blockchain to automate several processes in a secure manner. The model is applicable to a wide range of funds and does not depend on the jurisdiction.
For more info on FundsDLT’s, please visit: http://www.fundsdlt.net

About BNP Paribas Asset Management

BNP Paribas Asset Management is the investment management arm of BNP Paribas, one of the world’s major financial institutions. Managing and advising EUR 571 billion in assets as at 30 September 2017, BNP Paribas Asset Management offers a comprehensive range of active, passive and quantitative investment solutions covering a broad spectrum of asset classes and regions. With more than 700 investment professionals and around 600 client servicing specialists, BNP Paribas Asset Management serves individual, corporate and institutional investors in 73 countries around the world. Since 2002, BNP Paribas Asset Management has been a major player in sustainable and responsible investing.
For more information, please visit bnpparibas-am.com

About KPMG Luxembourg 

KPMG in Luxembourg provides a full range of audit, tax and advisory services to major national and international clients active in the financial, insurance, commercial and industrial sectors.
With more than 1,500 people, KPMG in Luxembourg is one of the country’s leading audit, tax and advisory firms. Our approach to relationships and service delivery is designed to help clients exploit new opportunities, improve performance and manage risk.

About Fundsquare

Fundsquare was constituted in June 2013 and was set up by the Luxembourg Stock Exchange in order to create a unique international market infrastructure that provides services to substantially support and standardise cross-border distribution of investment funds. The main objective of this utility is to facilitate the relationships between professional investors and funds and to allow them to meet current and future challenges of cross-border distribution. It provides a flexible and responsive infrastructure to enable operational effectiveness across the entire distribution chain. Fundsquare offers unique solutions for order routing management, information and regulatory compliance.

About InTech 

InTech is an IT company providing consulting and expertise in information technology. With more than 100 engineers, InTech helps their customers to create innovative services thru the use of emerging technologies and works on blockchain since 2013. InTech is a POST Luxembourg Group subsidiary.

Posted on

First real blockchain transaction completed in fund distribution

PRESS RELEASE – Paris, 5 July 2017 – Natixis Asset Management, a leading affiliate of Natixis Global Asset Management, indicated that a pilot investor in a test of blockchain smart contract prototype successfully purchased shares in Natixis AM’s funds through the blockchain-powered fund distribution platform for fund managers, FundsDLT.

The news comes after Natixis announced its intention to be the first asset management player in the industry to use the FundsDLT subscription prototype that uses blockchain technology to enhance distribution and processing mechanisms in the asset management industry.

FundsDLT is the result of collaboration between Fundsquare (a subsidiary of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange), InTech (a subsidiary of POST Group) and KPMG Luxembourg. The platform is being developed to enable asset managers to sell funds through a new distribution channel, while significantly reducing administration costs and the time to process transactions for both asset managers and other asset servicers. FundsDLT intends to streamline a range of fund administration and order-routing tasks by using blockchain to automate several processes in a secure manner. The model is applicable to a wide range of funds and does not depend on the jurisdiction.

The successful execution means that, for the first time in the fund industry, an investor was able to use a blockchain based platform to purchase real funds’ shares with real cash. First, the investor used the FundsDLT mobile app to submit the standard subscription order for the shares. Via the API the order was transmitted to the FundsDLT platform and the information was immediately and simultaneously transmitted using blockchain technology to Natixis AM and the other parties involved in the transaction, each one having its own node on the FundsDLT blockchain. The transfer agent – in this case CACEIS – was the first to act by confirming the transaction and logging it as “approved” or “declined”. Approval triggered the clearing and settlement processes: all of which took place on the FundsDLT platform. This change in the distribution chain promises a real revolution for distribution activities.

The cash and payment process was handled using S-money (part of Groupe BPCE). The investor topped up an S-money account with sufficient funds to cover the transaction before completing the order. S-money APIs were a major contributor to this success, as they allowed for the movement of money via state-of-the-art technology. This real transaction has paved the way for a new financial services model.

Said Fihri of KPMG Luxembourg explains:

“It is really exciting to be part of such a tremendous step forward. We not only replicated trades in the blockchain; we moved real cash and invested in a real fund. This successful prototype could eventually be used in different configurations: distributors, IFA, robo advisors and D2C.”

Olivier Portenseigne, Managing Director of Fundsquare, comments:

“We are proud to have run the first real blockchain transactions in the history of investment funds. It was important for us to demonstrate that FundsDLT works in order to create the necessary trust that blockchain will answer the current needs of the asset management industry in terms of operational efficiency and digitalization. This will give our customers easy access to a powerful new generation of services.”

Arnaud Misset, Group Product Director at CACEIS comments:

“We are delighted to have contributed to the launch of this new Distribution Platform in Luxembourg built on blockchain technology and to have enabled our client Natixis Asset Management to be the first asset manager to distribute their funds range via FundsDLT.”

Fabrice Croiseaux, CEO of InTech, adds:

“We have developed a flexible and efficient API dedicated to the fund industry by using state-of-the-art technologies: a combination of blockchain and a microservice-based reactive platform. We look forward to see how far we can go in terms of performance and real time interoperability.”

Matthieu Duncan, CEO of Natixis Asset Management concluded:

“Natixis Asset Management is delighted to have contributed to this pioneering first blockchain enabled trade via the FundsDLT platform. We believe the potential for blockchain technology to enhance distribution mechanisms in the asset management industry is very significant.”

With the successful completion of the first transactions, the team is looking to investigate other use cases and applications in the field of B2B and B2B2C.

If you’d like to read more about FundsDLT’s solutions, please visit our website: http://www.fundsdlt.net

​

Posted on

The times they are a chainin’

Fund distribution is entering the digital age, and so can traditional service providers. Fundsquare’s Paolo Brignardello explains why it’s in their interests.

Anyone operating in the funds industry over the last few years will know that product costs are under pressure, and new ways of doing business in the future will need new operating models.

The advent of several regulations such as the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), the Regulation for Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products, and UCITS V, have or will impose a greater regulatory burden on asset managers, and rising intermediation in distributing funds in the last decade has squeezed margins.

As if things weren’t challenging enough, asset managers must also adapt to changing client behaviour with a growing number of millennials placing greater emphasis on simplicity and convenience of services, as well as security. As we enter the digital era, industry players will need to evolve their distribution models in order to provide services to investors and sustain trust in the future.

The funds industry must also lower overall costs and deliver even more competitive products. A recent report from Deloitte and Fundsquare points out that Luxembourg’s cross-border fund industry alone could save nearly €1 billion a year with improvements to the fund distribution supply chain. However, there’s been little impetus for changes so far. This could soon change with the introduction of new technologies such as blockchain. Blockchain has been something of a buzzword in recent months. Its distributed ledger technology (DLT) is threatening to shake up the business model for financial sector players, including the funds industry. Distributed ledgers and digital tokens are able to use blockchain technology to track ownership of financial assets, in real time and in a less costly method, opening it up to shared economy models.

There has been much speculation that the introduction of blockchain technology could help drive down costs and replace intermediaries that currently operate in the fund space. These include transfer agents, custodians, distributors, and settlement and clearing houses. But these entities provide vital fund administration services and cannot simply be dispensed with. Instead, we see blockchain technology as offering a route towards greater efficiencies among intermediaries, heightened security and improved services for investors around a single ecosystem.

Starting from late 2016, Fundsquare partnered with InTech and KPMG to launch FundsDLT, a new decentralised fund order processing engine based on DLTs, digital tokens and smart contracts to test a fund distribution model using blockchain. The aim was to set a first milestone operating in the existing fund industry ecosystem, in cooperation with existing actors. In this attempt to create a shared economy for funds, the first use case addressed is for asset managers willing to sell funds directly to investors, and to test its effects.

The operating model sees an investor going through an online application to access fund information and perform know-your-customer (KYC) duties and then subscribe to a fund by provisioning cash through a digitalised token. On the other side, transfer agents will perform the validation of KYC requirements and order acceptance, while an asset manager can follow up inflows and outflows in the registrar in real time. Once the net asset value (NAV) has been published, the entire settlement process is executed instantaneously.

FundsDLT is expected to reduce the cost and processing time of transactions by streamlining fund administration and order routing tasks. As a result, investors, asset managers, custodian banks and transfer agents will be able to share information in a far simpler manner. For example, it can currently take up to three days for a transfer agent to execute an order taken from a client. This new fund distribution channel will do it in a couple of hours after NAV publication—and in the not-too-distant future, with multiple NAVs per day. Investors’ experience of lengthy settlement processes for services will be less tolerated when compared to other online transaction services. The proposed ecosystem created by FundsDLT will also ease anti-money laundering, KYC and MiFID II verification by standardising the process. This will reduce costs tremendously and remove the need to repeat KYC tasks for investors or their agents.

FundsDLT intends to expose a complete application programming interface to deliver an open standard covering accounts, transactions, onboarding, KYC, payments and entitlements. This is expected to lead to broader changes in Luxembourg’s pool of expertise. Intermediaries like transfer agents have great stores of knowledge and are well placed to be an active part of the industry’s revolution.

FundsDLT has been developed using a private permissioned Ethereum blockchain and is expected to grow under a consortium blockchain where the consensus process and access permissions are controlled. The experimentation is progressing, in collaboration with fund industry actors, toward a viable product that is driving increases in operational performance.

We strongly believe that the funds industry needs to explore the digital revolution to find alternatives as well as complementary distribution models that will increase efficiency, deliver a new service paradigm to investors and make funds more accessible to new market segments.

Asset Servicing Times, issue 158

Posted on

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)

Distributed ledgers have the potential for “modernising, streamlining and simplifying the ‘silo’ design of the financial industry infrastructure”.

A new frontier for the fund​​​​​ distribution model.

Distributed ledger technology threatens to disrupt the business model of many financial sector players, including much of the fund industry. Transfer agents, custody, fund accounting, distribution and more, are likely to suffer, as are clearing and settlement houses, payment system providers, and stock exchanges. In short, anything in the financial sector that can be summed up as data duplication and reconciliation is vulnerable for disruption.

The blockchain technology underpinning Bitcoin is proving to be a perfectly secure and tamperproof way to share any type of data. As this technology and its use has matured, so Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are gaining a reputation for reliability. Distributed ledgers use the block chain to track ownership of any financial, physical, or electronic asset: bonds, equity, currencies, commodities, fund shares…

Anyone with permission can update and access data on the distributed ledger, with all users able to see who has changed what, when and by how much. Counterparties could keep these ledgers up-to-date in real time, without the need for an expensive third party. This would eliminate the need for many of the firms that currently thrive in Luxembourg and elsewhere maintaining and reconciling lists of more or less the same data. Blockchain means software developers too will have to rethink their methods.

View the full article (from ALFI Spring Magazine 2016)

Company

Société anonyme
RCS: B242970

Address

7, avenue du Swing
L - 4367 Belvaux

NEWS AND SOCIAL

Linkedin Wordpress

© Copyright 2023 | FundsDLT | All Rights Reserved