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SWIFT and Accenture issue position paper outlining the path to Distributed Ledger Technology adoption within financial services

22/04/2016

SWIFT, in collaboration with Accenture, has issued a paper investigating how Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) could be used in financial services. The paper is based on an in-depth technology assessment by SWIFT of DLT usage across financial institutions, highlighting the opportunities as well as the challenges for industry-wide adoption. 

As a result of the technology assessment, SWIFT and Accenture identified gaps between existing DLT solutions and industry requirements, including eight critical factors that need to be addressed for the technology to achieve industry-wide adoption. The paper also highlights SWIFT's research and development plans to build technical, operational and business capabilities with a view to evolve its platform such that DLT-based services could be offered, when the technology matures and business use cases emerge across multiple verticals.

Based on the assessment, the eight critical factors that need to be addressed for industry-wide adoption of DLTs include:

  • Strong governance
  • Data controls
  • Compliance with regulatory requirements
  • Standardisation
  • Identity framework
  • Security and cyber defence
  • Reliability
  • Scalability
The paper can be downloaded here SWIFT Position Paper (DLTs).pdf    


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