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Axa IM completes first blockchain transaction

Dec 15, 2021 By Nicholas Pratt

Blockchain3French fund manager Axa Investment Managers has announced the completion of its first market transaction using blockchain technology.

The firm, on behalf of Axa France, purchased from Societe Generale €3 million of unsecured bonds issued by the European Investment Bank in the form of security tokens on the public blockchain Ethereum.

Also involved was Societe Generale’s digital asset investor services group Forge.

“Blockchain can have a disruptive power for asset management processes, as part/or the entire asset management value chain could benefit from this technology over the long term,” said Laurence Arnold, head of innovation management and strategic initiatives at Axa IM.

“We believe this could improve the customer experience by accelerating the treatment of financial transactions and facilitating the exchange and storage of data,” added Arnold.

He also said that Axa IM is “keen to carry out tests in our changing ecosystem,” and to discover new techniques and markets.  

The transaction was one of several 'firsts' in recent days. 

In the FX market, HSBC and Wells Fargo announced the first interbank payment vs payment settlement outside of CLS using Baton Systems’ DLT-based service Core-FX. Meanwhile State Street and Vanguard completed their first live trade for FX forward contracts using DLT.

©2021 fundsTech

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