SC Ventures, Standard Chartered’s innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm, together with Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), one of the largest banks in Germany, as well as Comyno, a financial software specialist, have all agreed to invest in DekaBank’s SWIAT, a blockchain platform that enables real-time settlement and trading of traditional and digital data, assets and transactions.

The newly created joint venture will combine the strengths of the three founding banks with Comyno’s technology expertise to create a uniform standard for processing blockchain-based securities.

It will provide software to create a decentralized financial infrastructure and frictionless, real-time settlement in multiple use cases, including securities lending, repurchase agreements, derivatives and bond issuance.

The move, the companies say, will allow banks to conduct business more efficiently in these areas at a lower cost with better risk management, higher speed and greater flexibility. It will also enable economies of scale and create new business opportunities like providing custody services.

The transformational investment by the new partners will be deployed towards capacity building as well as speeding up product development and scaling up SWIAT’s marketing efforts.

"Currently, there is no uniform standard for issuing, trading or settling digital assets," says Martin Müller, DekaBank board of management member. “Only with other financial institutions coming on board would it be possible to develop and establish such a standard on the blockchain for the financial sector. So, in essence, SWIAT really relies on multi-party cooperation.”

Alex Manson, head of SC Ventures, adds: “SWIAT is a solution for the financial sector being built at institutional grade by banks, for banks.”