Mutual Funds Payment Processing Network Calastone Migrates Services To Blockchain

Payment Processing Network Clastone Migrates Services To Blockchain

Clastone, a London-based transaction processing company has decided to move its services to the blockchain for greater efficiency. The company which serves 1,800 in over 41 countries worldwide said this in an announcement, Monday 20 May.

The new blockchain platform known as the Distributed Market Infrastructure (DMI) could save the company an estimated $3.4 billion a year. The firm had experimented with the use of blockchain technology about two years ago and today the dream has become a reality.

Prior to the migration, Calastone had a payment system that relied on manual means of processing transactions which was much more tedious and expensive. With the migration, however, Calastone users can now conduct transactions in real time in a more transparent system that enables recording of every transaction on the blockchain like every other blockchain platform.

“Through Calastone’s blockchain-enabled market infrastructure all participants across the fund’s world can work together seamlessly and view trading activity in real-time. Information now ripples instantly across the market, a step change from the previous, fragmented model.” the firm’s chief innovation officer Campbell Brierley said.

Ripple has been the leader in international payment on a blockchain platform. Before now, the network has been seen as the leader in the industry. However, with 1,800 clients, Calastone seems to be a much bigger that Ripple and could be a formidable force now that its services have moved to a blockchain platform.

The company is providing a platform for financial services firms the world over to use its DMI for financial services globally, which sounds like Ripple’s niche. Notably, one of Calastone’s clients is JPMorgan Asset Management, a subsidiary of JP Morgan Bank which recently launched its own cryptocurrency, JPM Coin.

Calastone’s migration to a blockchain-based system deals with a lot of issues such as transaction cost, time taken to settle transactions as well as the propensity to make mistake when handling transactions using the old methods.

Another company SWIFT has been struggling with Ripple to dominate the international payment industry.  As assets get tokenized and payment infrastructure gets on the blockchain, SWIFT may be on its way to obscurity unless it joins the queue to become a blockchain -based platform as well.