International funds transaction network Calastone has announced that the technology underpinning its core systems will be migrated onto a full blockchain-enabled infrastructure.

More than 1,300 financial service organisations across 34 markets are connected to Calastone’s network, processing over £80 billion of trades and seven million messages each month – making it the largest global fund transaction network.

Calastone successfully completed the first phase of its blockchain-enabled distributed market infrastructure proof of concept in June this year, which saw Calastone test and verify the feasibility of using the technology to create a global marketplace for the trading and settlement of mutual funds.

The company hopes that the switch to blockchain in 2019 will enable much greater volumes of transaction processing and fund flows. Calastone noted that the current requirement to replicate and reconcile records across the value chain creates an overhead which dwarfs the benefits already offered by its trading and settlement solutions, and that the blockchain move would enable the planning and delivery of major improvements.

Julien Hammerson, CEO of Calastone, said: “As we build the business we consistently put innovation and customers first. Our vision remains to work with the industry to reduce the overall total cost of ownership by making it friction-free and increasing value for all market participants.

“Our services have introduced significant operational and cost efficiencies into the sector and as we scale our business for the future, we are ensuring we have the connectivity and technology to continue to service the increasingly sophisticated demands for efficiency, value and speed.”

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