Payments Canada, the Bank of Canada, TMX Group and Accenture have shown — through their collaboration on Project Jasper — that it is feasible to instantaneously clear and settle securities on-ledger, and have demonstrated for the first time that both central bank cash and assets can be tokenized to complete instant equity settlements via distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Payments Canada owns and operates the country’s payments clearing and settlement infrastructure, and works to ensure the privacy and security of Canada’s financial transactions. Every day, the company processes roughly $200 billion in payments, while the Bank of Canada — the country’s central bank — instills monetary policies to lower inflation and promote financial stability.
TMX Group operates cash and derivatives markets and clearinghouses for asset classes like equities and fixed income. The organization provides trading facilities to Canada’s financial community, while Accenture offers solutions in strategy, technology and operations to improve business-client relations and to create sustainable value for stakeholders.
Project Jasper is a collaborative research initiative between the four institutions to understand how DTL could transform the payments system, and to experiment with a DLT-based integrated securities and payment platform. Jasper III, a continuation of a March 2016 venture, is a proof of concept that explores the benefits of DLT on Canada’s financial systems.
Gerry Gaetz, the president and CEO of Payments Canada, commented, “This proof of concept shows that it is possible to deliver payments in a way that has never been done before — by directly swapping cash from buyers to sellers, resulting in instant settlements. We continue to see how the application of distributed ledger technology can help extend the vision of payments innovation in Canada and potentially, one day, help promote financial market integration both nationally and internationally.”
At first, Project Jasper
