Deutsche Bundesbank, in partnership with Deutsche Börse, has successfully completed the performance tests of a jointly developed, blockchain-based prototypes for securities settlement, based on blockchain technology. The prototypes support the settlement of securities transactions, payments, interest payments and repayments at the maturity of a bond. It was developed on both Hyperledger Fabric (version 1.0) and the Digital Asset Platform and subjected to demanding performance tests. According to the two companies, the tests showed that both prototypes are suitable for the productive operation of a realistic financial market infrastructure and can serve as a basis for further development. Both the Digital Asset Platform and the Hyperledger Fabric have had subsequent releases which may even improve the performance. “During this project, Deutsche Bundesbank and Deutsche Börse learned a lot about the usage of this technology and its concrete implementation. We expect the rapid development to continue, and also see the potential in using it for high-volume applications. The approach of a permissioned architecture, which takes into account the requirements of the financial sector from the outset, has proven to be right,” said Burkhard Balz, Member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Bundesbank.
