Euroclear and itBit collaborate on blockchain solution for gold market settlement

BRUSSELS and LONDON and NEW YORK, June 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Euroclear and itBit, a financial services company delivering blockchain services for capital markets, today announced their collaboration to explore opportunities in creating a next generation settlement service for the London gold market.

The settlement of unallocated gold is a very capital-intensive process. Euroclear and itBit are working with relevant market participants to develop a service to significantly minimise risk leading to a reduced capital charge, deliver true delivery versus payment and reduce balance sheet constraints. Euroclear has partnered with itBit based on its proprietary blockchain infrastructure technology and flagship product, Bankchain. The Bankchain product is a private network of trusted participants that clears, tracks and settles trades in close to real-time.

Angus Scott, Director, Product Strategy and Innovation at Euroclear, commented: "Euroclear is pleased to be working with itBit on this initiative. As an open and resilient infrastructure, our strategy has been to work with relevant industry stakeholders. We have also created an advisory group, which recently convened to discuss the building of the new service with the ambition to make the London bullion market more efficient."

Chad Cascarilla, CEO of itBit, added: "We are excited to be partnering with Euroclear to develop a trusted digital infrastructure for gold. Precious metals are the first use case for Bankchain, and London bullion is a market in which a distributed ledger can have an immediate benefit."

About Euroclear

Euroclear group is the financial industry's trusted provider of post trade services. At the core, the group provides settlement, safe-keeping and servicing of domestic and cross-border securities for bonds, equities and derivatives to investment funds. Euroclear is a proven, resilient capital market infrastructure committed to delivering risk-mitigation, automation and efficiency at scale for its global client franchise.

The Euroclear group includes Euroclear Bank which is rated AA+ by Fitch Ratings and AA by Standard & Poor's as well as Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear Finland, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland, Euroclear Sweden and Euroclear UK & Ireland. The Euroclear group settled the equivalent of EUR 675 trillion in securities transactions in 2015, representing 191 million domestic and cross-border transactions. By December 2015, the group held EUR 27.5 trillion in assets for clients.

For more information about Euroclear, please visit www.euroclear.com.

About itBit

itBit is a leading financial services company using blockchain technology solutions to redesign the post-trade business across traditional capital markets. The company has established itself as an innovator in the blockchain industry with the development of Bankchain, a permissioned distributed network that expedites and secures the clearing and settling of assets. Bankchain brings faster settlement finality, next-generation record keeping and reduced counterparty risk to existing capital markets.

SOURCE itBit