Digital Asset, DTCC Partner for US Repo Distributed Ledger Development

Under the terms of the collaboration, DTCC and Digital Asset will develop and test blockchain technology for the US repo market where trade volumes have grown steadily, aiming to reduce settlement time to match real-time repo trade speeds.

DTCC's Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) currently provides matching and reconciliation for the beginning stages of repo trades, but lacks settlement functionality for same-day starting trades. The ultimate goal of the partnership will allow FICC to become the settlement counterparty for repo transactions in real-time.

"This collaboration further demonstrates Digital Asset's commitment to enhancing post-trade processes for financial market infrastructure providers and market participants," said Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset in a statement. "DTCC has an important role to play in the integration of a distributed ledger ecosystem with the existing financial landscape and this joint effort will accelerate innovation while decreasing cost and risk for our clients."

So far in 2016 exchange group Nasdaq, inter-dealer broker Icap and fintech R3 are among those who have announced successful proof-of-concept for distributed ledger technologies.