SIX Digital Exchange goes live on R3’s Corda

The SIX Digital Exchange is a major turning point in the digital transformation of financial markets.

This week we witnessed a quiet revolution in financial markets and the technology which powers them. SIX launched the SIX Digital Exchange, its fully integrated trading, settlement, and custody infrastructure.

This is one of the biggest changes we are likely to see in financial market infrastructure in our lifetime. This will now be the standard for digital asset exchanges and digital central security depositories created in the future.

SIX Digital Exchange uses R3’s distributed ledger technology platform, Corda, extensively, to underpin its post-trade lifecycle and deliver a single, seamless solution between trading and settlement. With the exception of NASDAQ’s Xtreme platform (which provides the traditional Central Matching Engine), the entire workflow is facilitated through Corda’s private, permissioned and industrial-strength platform.

Together, we are delivering a world first—a single seamless workflow and client experience, from execution up to and including the point of atomic settlement on ledger, using cash delivered to the SIX Digital Exchange by their local central bank. From a settlement risk and cost perspective, it revolutionizes the post-trade process and lifecycle, driving a “coach and horses” through the spaghetti of processes and people that make up the T+2 settlement offered today, reducing that offering to T+0, and eventually near instantaneous as required.

R3’s Corda supports digital financial market infrastructures

R3 is proud to be leading the charge in the digitization of regulated financial markets—this is one of many partnerships we hold with global exchanges and depositories—several of which are designing and implementing digital market infrastructure on Corda—including the London Stock Exchange.

The entire SIX Digital Exchange platform has been architected to support a broad range of digital assets over time, including the listing, trading and settlement of traditional capital markets assets such as bonds, equities and associated derivates alongside a broad spectrum on new and exciting asset types such as private equity, real estate, infrastructure and fine art.

Unlike traditional domestic stock exchanges which trade on limited hours and to a limited number of domestic and super-regional members, SIX Digital Exchange is a truly global exchange that has the capacity to operate round the clock and to a global audience. Combining the ‘execute to settle’ lifecycle alongside increasing the capacity of asset class coverage and expanding the open trading window, this is undeniably one of the biggest changes we are likely to see in financial market infrastructure in our lifetime.

The SIX Digital Exchange is transformative, not only because it brings the entire lifecycle of assets from inception to maturity onto the ledger but also because it finally liberates venues from being shackled to either a single geography or catchment. Members are no longer limited to just the assets that reside within a given jurisdiction, they can now access a truly global franchise—delivering listing, trading, custody and settlement across a very broad range of assets and to a diverse global audience.

Together we have delivered a robust, resilient and highly scalable infrastructure on which SIX Digital Exchange members can transact safely and secure in the knowledge that their data and their activities remain completely private and immutable.

Welcome to the future.