SEB teams up with Nasdaq to develop blockchain for mutual funds

According to SEB, the joint project to test a prototype for a blockchain-based fund trading platform is designed to “to increase efficiency in the processing of purchases and sales of fund units – an area which today is largely characterised by manual routines, long lead times and orders (still) via fax”.

Göran Fors, acting head of investor services and in charge of the cooperation with Nasdaq, said blockchain will enable the companies to “create a faster, simpler, more effective and reliable handling of flows in funds”. The platform will enable various market actors, fund companies, distributors and other market participants “to share a distributed database on which all transactions and changes are immediately registered and known by all participants,” SEB and Nasdaq said on Wednesday. Unlike the equity market, where trades are recorded by a central securities depository, the Swedish fund market doesn’t have a central entity responsible for recording fund