Tata Consultancy Services Completes World’s First Successful Cross-Border Securities Settlement

The world’s second largest IT Services provider, Tata Consultancy Services, has completed the world’s first successful cross-border securities settlement between two central securities depositories (CSDs), Maroclear, the CSD of Morocco, and Kuwait Clearing Company, the CSD of Kuwait.

The test involved the creation of a set of equities and fixed income securities from both the Kuwaiti and Moroccan markets in TCS BaNCS Network, which was then implemented on the Quartz Blockchain. The cross border transactions were settled using cash coins held in the Quartz Blockchain in a true delivery versus payment (DVP) settlement model.

TCS BaNCS Network is a multi-asset class solution designed for high-performance transaction management. Deployed at more than 450 installations worldwide, it is the largest collection of components, enterprise and consumer apps for the financial industry made available through the cloud.

The Quartz Blockchain Solution comprises of:

• Quartz Smart Solutions – ‘Designed for Blockchain’ solutions.
• Quartz DevKit – Smart Contract development kits
• Quartz Gateway – for the integration of existing solutions with blockchain ecosystems
• Quartz Command Center – can administer and monitor entire ecosystems.

Cash coins are a form of a digital currency pegged to a fiat currency at a fixed market rate and are maintained on a private, permissioned blockchain network.

Celebrating the success of the test:

Fathia Bennis, CEO of Maroclear, said,

“With our strategic vision of providing innovative technology solutions to our financial markets, we have expanded  our decade-long relationship with TCS alongside the capabilities of TCS BaNCS, the BaNCS Network and Quartz Blockchain solutions in exploring new operational opportunities to enable the cross-border settlements landscape in the Moroccan and African markets.”

Khaldoun Altabtabaie, CEO, Kuwait Clearing Company, said,

“The seamless integration of the Market Infrastructure solution from TCS BaNCS with Quartz Blockchain now opens up new opportunities for us to explore the usage of Blockchain in the Kuwaiti market.”

R Vivekanand, Vice President, and Co-Head, TCS Financial Solutions, said,

“Real-time cross-border settlement with cash coins reduces risks, costs and has the potential to create enhanced liquidity in markets in the Middle East and Africa.”

It is to be mentioned that, The Quartz Cross Border Remittances solution enables banks/payments systems to connect to newer DLT based payment infrastructures (like RippleNet) for processing of Cross border FX remittance transactions.