Calastone Successfully Completes First Phase of Blockchain Distributed Market Infrastructure Proof-of-Concept for the Global Funds Industry

London (ots/PRNewswire) - Global funds transaction network and
Future50 FinTech pioneer seeks to further reduce frictional cost of
trading mutual funds, from fund manufacturer to end investor, by
placing marketplace on a blockchain. Phase one proved it can be done.
Phase Two engages market participant 'design partners'.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521731/Calastone_Logo.jpg )

Calastone, the global funds transaction network, today announced the
successful completion of the first phase of its distributed market
infrastructure proof-of-concept (PoC) to test the feasibility of
using blockchain to develop a common global marketplace for the
trading and settlement of mutual funds.

The tested distributed infrastructure model proved capable of
processing transactions equivalent to a full day's trading sourced
from across Calastone's global transaction network, which spans over
1,200 fund distribution and fund manager clients across 34 markets.

Campbell Brierley, Chief Information Officer of Calastone said,
"Successful initial testing, involving a large volume of trades
across a fully representative global market universe, has given us a
powerful understanding of how to optimise the distributed ledger
technology to reduce the frictional cost of trading across the
industry on a global scale. Placing the market on a blockchain
effectively opens the door for potential efficiencies across the
whole transaction lifecycle in excess of those that could be achieved
via the optimisation of transaction processing alone."

He continued, "The encouraging results of the initial blockchain PoC
allow us to look confidently to a future where participants currently
connected to the Calastone Transaction Network could seamlessly
migrate to this distributed market infrastructure."

Ken Tregidgo, Calastone Deputy CEO explained, "The positive results
of our PoC has shown that by using distributed ledger technology
across the entire lifecycle of mutual fund transactions, from order
placement through to the settlement and payment, industry
participants could significantly benefit from simpler processing."

Julien Hammerson, Calastone CEO commented, "Our vision is to enable
friction-free trading for funds industry participants. Since
launching in 2008, Calastone has pioneered ways to introduce
operational and functional efficiencies for the industry from order
routing, through to settlement, reconciliations, market data
distribution and analytics. The scale and connectivity we have built
in major markets around the globe makes us the natural partner to
explore operational and infrastructural efficiencies across the
global funds industry."

Calastone has announced a second phase to its PoC, and is now engaged
with a number of design partners drawn from its global client base.
"The design partners will help us test the model and understand the
business challenges and requirements from a market participant
perspective. It's through technological innovation such as this that
we aim to address the business and technical trading challenges faced
by our customers across international markets," Tregidgo concluded.

About Calastone

Calastone is a financial technology company. Our mission is to make
markets friction-free by connecting trading partners through our
global fund transaction network. With connectivity across 34
countries and territories, more than 1,200 customers are now
processing domestic and cross border transactions via Calastone,
benefiting from the cost and risk reduction opportunities transaction
automation can offer.

Our purpose is to use smart technology solutions and industry
collaboration to enable global distribution, reduce operational risk
and enhance client profitability. Calastone has offices in London,
Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Sydney.

In order to represent the best interests of the industry, Calastone
is actively involved with the following organisations; TISA (Tax
Incentives Savings Association), TEX (TISA Exchange), WMA, NICSA,
ALFI, SMPG, FPG, FSC, AMPS, HKIFA, IMAS, IFA and ACSA.

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