Calastone, the operator of a London-based transaction network for investment funds, is looking to move its entire settlements system to a blockchain by May 2019.
According to a Financial Times report on Sunday, Calastone, which provides services to over 1,700 firms including JP Morgan Asset Management, estimates the plan could help the industry save up to £3.4 billion (or $4.3 billion) in fund distribution costs, excluding the U.S. market.
Currently, Calastone’s processes for settling funds are still manual, including over 9 million messages and transactions worth about $217 billion a month between buyers, sellers and distributors, according to the firm's website. It's now eyeing blockchain as a way to automate these processes in order to make them cheaper and more efficient since the parties involved will no longer need to submit the same information multiple times.