BNP Paribas Securities Services is partnering with Digital Asset to design a number of real-time trade and settlement apps using DAML smart contracts that will provide market participants in the Asia-Pacific region with real-time access to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX)’s anticipated distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based trading and settlement platforms.

The apps will also be available to clients in markets that have not integrated DLT, bringing them the benefit of real-time workflows. The first solution, due in 2021, is a smart elections service for corporate actions.

All parties in the corporate action chain will receive information such as dividend reinvestment or purchase offer decisions at the same time, reducing processing time, improving operational efficiency, and enabling investors to finalise their decisions on the most current information on market factors.

Jon Rout, Digital Asset’s business development director, Asia-Pacific, points out: “BNP Paribas Securities Services’ vision of bringing real-time post-trade information to clients and leveraging DAML smart contracts to automate client process flows at scale is an indication of just how transformative DLT will be for custody services.”