Tag: Anz

Breaking: Swift, Chainlink, and Major Banks Achieve Multi-Blockchain Token Transfer

by Blockchain News

Swift, the global financial messaging service, announced on August 31, 2023, that it has successfully conducted a series of experiments to facilitate the transfer of tokenized assets across multiple blockchains. Collaborating with major financial institutions and Chainlink ($LINK), a Web3 services platform, Swift aims to solve the interoperability challenges that have been a barrier to the growth of tokenized asset markets.

Major banks involved are: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ), BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Citi, Clearstream, Euroclear, Lloyds Banking Group, SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

Key Findings

Swift’s experiments revealed that its existing infrastructure could serve as a “single point of entry for financial institutions moving tokenized assets while leveraging existing secure infrastructure.” The cooperative’s efforts are part of a broader strategy to maintain secure, global interoperability in a fragmented financial ecosystem.

Tom Zschach, Chief Innovation Officer at Swift, stated, “Interoperability is at the heart of everything we are doing at Swift to facilitate the seamless flow of value across the world […] Our experiments have demonstrated clearly that existing secure and trusted Swift infrastructure can provide that central point of connectivity, removing a huge hurdle in the development of tokenization and unlocking its potential.”

The Challenge of Interoperability

Tokenization is still in its early stages, but 97% of institutional investors believe it will revolutionize asset management. One of the main challenges is the lack of interoperability between different blockchains where tokenized assets are managed. Financial institutions currently have to build connections to each platform individually, leading to “significant operational challenges and cost.”

Technical Insights

Swift collaborated with financial institutions such as ANZ, BNP Paribas, and BNY Mellon, among others. Chainlink was used to securely connect the Swift network to the Ethereum Sepolia network. The experiments involved transfers of simulated tokenized assets between wallets on the same public Distributed Ledger Technology network, between two wallets on different public blockchains, and between a public and private blockchain network.

Future Prospects

Swift will continue to work with the financial community to identify the most compelling use cases for tokenized asset adoption. The most promising avenue, in the near term, appears to be in the secondary trading of non-listed assets and private markets.

Implications

The experiments signify a step forward in solving the interoperability problem that has been a bottleneck for the broader adoption of tokenized assets. By providing a single point of entry, Swift could potentially lower operational challenges and costs for financial institutions.

Conclusion

Swift’s experiments mark a significant milestone in the quest for interoperability in the tokenized asset landscape. While the technology is still in its infancy, Swift’s efforts could pave the way for more efficient and cost-effective management of digital assets, thereby accelerating their adoption in mainstream finance.

Image source: Shutterstock

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ANZ bank executive: The ‘weight of money’ means crypto can’t be ignored

by Cointelegraph

One of the ANZ bank’s senior executives has told a Blockchain Australia forum that the crypto sector has grown too big to be ignored by traditional finance.

The comments came a day after rival Commonwealth Bank announced that it would roll out crypto trading services for 10 digital assets via its Commbank app.

The “State of Play” forum was held by Blockchain Australia on Nov. 4 and featured representatives from organizations including Mastercard, ANZ and NAB offering their take on the crypto sector in the wake of CBA’s play.

Nigel Dobson, ANZ’s Banking Services Portfolio Lead stated that the growth of the crypto and blockchain tech over the past 12 to 18 months has put the sector firmly on the bank’s radar:

“There’s this sort of weight of money that you just simply at some point can’t ignore right? And you know, in the DeFi world that we’ve been watching for a while or even in just the currency space, it’s just the weight of money and the quality of money that’s moving into these venues that it makes us think, well, what is happening here?”

“When you look under the hood on that, we’ve concluded that this is a major protocol shift for financial market infrastructure,” he added.

Dobson is a senior banker with more than 30 years of experience at Barclays, Citibank and ANZ. He likened the technological advancements brought about by blockchain tech to the transformative effects the Internet had on global commerce in the early 2000s.

“We’re seeing the same kind of shift occurring here. We’re shifting to more decentralized, arguably more trusted, more secure, faster, cheaper, better — yet to be proven —but if that’s the thesis that these protocols can generate better outcomes and new business models, then they can’t be ignored,” he said.

Related: Blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis opens Australian office

None of the other members of Australia’s big four banks has announced any immediate plans to follow CBA in enabling crypto trading. Dobson stated that it was unclear how CBA’s trial would go, but implied that the ANZ is likely to join the party at some stage.

“I think the move that the CBA made yesterday was bold and it is yet to be seen whether those customers will embrace that. But certainly all of what we’ve been talking about today, particularly in this section of the commentary, is that that the ship has sailed. And so what it is that we need to do is to navigate our path towards utilizing these networks,” he said.

The bullish comments mark a significant change from the bank, which recently settled a case with Canberra-based Bitcoin trader Aaron Flynn after he took legal action against ANZ over de-banking between 2018 and 2019 due to his work as a Digital Currency Exchange (DCE).