Deutsche Bundesbank and Deutsche Börse have successfully completed the performance tests of their jointly specified 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.

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.

Berthold Kracke, CEO of Clearstream Banking AG and Head of Clearstream Global Operations at Deutsche Börse Group, said “We are very happy with the results of the project. The tests have shown that blockchain technology is a suitable basis for applications in the field of settlement and other financial infrastructures. Thanks to the cooperation with Deutsche Bundesbank and the expertise of Digital Asset, we were able to tailor the product to the needs of the industry.”

The blockchain-based prototypes are a result of a collaborative research project between Deutsche Börse and the Deutsche Bundesbank to undertake blockchain based settlement technology research (in short: BLOCKBASTER). You can find the essential results of the project in the joint publication "BLOCKBASTER, Final Report“.