Transforming Custodial Operations with Blockchain

Data management, collateral management, and asset servicing stand to gain

As with other lines of business in the banking and financial services industry, custodian banks are under pressure to deliver competitive and cost-effective services. Given the challenges around stringent and complex regulations, legacy infrastructure constraints, and inefficient processes, delivering high levels of customer satisfaction while containing costs is an uphill task.

So, how can custodian banks offer efficient service despite these challenges? The answer lies in adopting blockchain technologies in areas such as reference data management, collateral management, asset servicing, and reconciliation. In our view, leveraging the wider ecosystem comprising buy-side and sell-side firms, market infrastructure firms, as well as competitors, is the best way for banks to build advanced blockchain solutions. With Blockchain platforms, custodian banks can reap two crucial benefits:

• Eliminate complex hierarchical processes
• Utilize the smart contract feature to enable automation