ECP Settlement: Blockchain Pilot Coming From Euroclear, EY, Santander, EIB

One of the world’s largest securities depositories, Euroclear, recently announced that it is pushing forward with building a blockchain based platform for the issuance of what’s known as the ECP settlement which is actually the settlement of the European commercial paper (ECP). The news was reported by EuroClear on June 19.

As the company noted, it managed to settle €791 trillion ($885.48 trillion)  in securities transactions and held €28.8 trillion ($32.24 trillion) on average in client assets last year (2018) according to the results which were published this March.

The financial services giant also revealed that it successfully completed a proof-of-value study for an ECP-focused blockchain platform. As many best cryptocurrency news sites re-shared the news, Euroclear is partnering with the European Investment Bank, Spain’s Santander Bank and the “Big Four” auditor Ernst and Young (EY) for the ECP settlement.

The news also show that the blockchain platform will serve end-to-end for issuing as well as settling ECPs – which are essentially unsecured short-term debt instruments issued by banks or corporations, representing a $1.2 trillion market. The press release also noted that “based on the initiative’s success, Euroclear intends to move on to pilot phase soon.”

The ECP settlement, as the altcoin news show, would be aided by a disintermediated blockchain platform, which would provide time efficiencies by replacing the cumbersome bilateral processing between market participants in a consolidated system. Euroclear also outlined the following:

“Other key benefits of this blockchain solution would be full transparency and traceability of ECP issuance related activities […] making ECP same day issuance a new market standard.”

As previously reported, there are other partnerships similar to this one. One of them is the one including the German financial services company Commerzbank, the French corporate and investment bank Natixis, and the Dutch financial services firm Rabobank – jointly completing a live commercial paper transaction using the Euro Debt Solution application that was developed by the enterprise blockchain consortium R3 for its Corda platform.

The effort done by Euroclear, as a true leader in the securities depositories market, is definitely worth featuring in the latest cryptocurrency news. Hopefully, the ECP settlement will proceed smoothly with no problems or challenges ahead.