Swiss giant UBS leads Ethereum platform

Just in time for the implementation of stringent new regulatory requirements, some of the largest banks in the world have revealed a pilot designed to simplify compliance using ethereum.

Banking giant UBS announced Monday it has united with Barclays, KBC, SIX and Thomson Reuters to advance the MiFID II data collection project. MiFID II is a revamped version of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, which is intended to offer greater protection for investors. MiFID II officially comes into force Jan. 3, 2018.

“The project is getting market participants to collaborate using blockchain to improve regulatory reporting,” Peter Stephens, head of blockchain at UBS, told Reuters.

The joint program will be powered by Ethereum smart contracts, and will be run on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Specifically, it will allow participants to align their Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) reference data against industry consensus. In other words, it will allow financial institutions to identify and sort out anomalies. The smart contracts will reconcile anonymized reference data on the blockchain without compromising the bank’s exclusive access to the source data.

The program was incubated in London at a UBS blockchain development lab.

The announcement had no discernible impact on ether prices. The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap continued to trade around $470 U.S. Ether briefly traded at record highs over the weekend before giving up gains ahead of the planned launch of bitcoin futures. Ethereum continues to be the platform of choice for developers, startups and financial institutions looking to leverage smart contract capability.