DTCC Moves into Crypto with Securrency Acquisition
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: October 20, 2023
Infrastructure provider DTCC has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire blockchain-based Securrency, a deal that the firm says allows it to bring TradFi industry practices and digital assets technology provision together.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, Securrency will become a fully-owned subsidiary of DTCC and will operate under the name DTCC Digital Assets. Nadine Chakar, CEO of Securrency, will join DTCC as global head of DTCC Digital Assets, reporting to Lynn Bishop, DTCC chief information officer, and will also join the DTCC management committee.
In addition, Dan Doney, CTO and founder of Securrency, John Hensel, COO and co-founder, and other members of the Securrency leadership team, as well as roughly 100 staff of full-time employees or contractors, will become DTCC employees.
By combining DTCC’s digital capabilities and Securrency’s technology, DTCC says it will fast-track development of its enterprise digital asset platform to “unlock the power of institutional DeFi”. It adds it will leverage the technology over time to embed digital assets within its existing products and services, develop new, regulatory-compliant blockchain-based offerings and explore use cases with the industry, to collaborate on new DTCC blockchain-based solutions.
In addition, DTCC says it will licence the Securrency technology and offer professional services. Firms will be able to leverage the technology to evolve their operating models and to create new digital asset services alone or in collaboration with other market participants. As an example, the firm points to how WisdomTree licenses Securrency’s software as part of the infrastructure for its WisdomTree Prime offering that provides tokenised assets and funds via digital wallets for retail investors and consumers.
“Securrency is an important strategic acquisition that will give us the technology to drive market-wide transformation by enabling end-to-end digital lifecycle processing for tokenised assets, digital currencies and other financial instruments,” says Frank La Salla, president, CEO and director of DTCC. “By bringing together DTCC’s commitment to providing market stability and our unparalleled network of financial market participants with the sophistication of the Securrency technology, we will be in a leading position to unlock the value of digital assets and help guide the industry through its digital transformation journey. We believe this next generation of financial market infrastructure will further reduce settlement times, facilitate market transparency and risk management, enhance regulatory oversight and controls, and unlock efficiency and innovation to create an improved investor experience.”
Chakar adds, “As we join forces with DTCC, we are excited to bring together DTCC’s infrastructure capabilities with Securrency’s technology to embrace a future where the digitisation of capital markets is at the forefront of innovation. These capabilities will allow DTCC to partner with the industry to build a resilient and scalable infrastructure critical to the mass adoption of digital assets. Together, we will unlock opportunities to reimagine compliance, liquidity, efficiency and interoperability in trading real-world assets on the blockchain.”
DTCC says it also plans to provide leadership to foster industry-wide collaboration to help avoid fragmentation with different digital technologies and standards. It explains that Securrency’s technology can address this issue by acting as a DLT-agnostic harmonisation layer that promotes interoperability, liquidity, transparency and security.
“We look forward to building on our past work to drive consensus around the standards, controls and frameworks necessary to support regulatory-compliant digital asset solutions and development of the right architecture and infrastructure to ensure widespread interoperability,” says La Salla. “We’re excited to welcome our new colleagues to the DTCC team and to begin collaborating as a group to strengthen market stability and resilience and drive greater efficiencies, productivity, risk mitigation and liquidity in the global financial markets.”