UK Finance Taps R3 and Quant for Blockchain Prototype to Advance Digital Payments Infrastructure
The UK’s Regulated Liability Network has chosen R3, a company specialising in enterprise distributed ledger technology and services, as well as Quant, a blockchain provider for finance, to develop the technology prototype for its experimental stage.
This initiative, spearheaded by UK Finance and backed by EY, aims to advance regulatory solutions within the financial sector.
The creators envision the UK RLN as a unified ‘innovation platform,’ integrating various currency forms like current commercial bank deposits and a shared ledger for tokenized commercial bank deposits. This collaborative effort within the financial services sector aims to explore avenues for users to conduct payments, transactions and settle obligations within the evolving digital marketplaces of tomorrow.
Key participants in the UK initiative include Barclays, Citi, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Mastercard, NatWest, Nationwide, Santander, Standard Chartered, Virgin Money and Visa. Supported by EY and Linklaters, the technological backbone of this endeavour comprises R3, Quant, DXC Technology (DXC) and Coadjute.
The project
The project harnesses R3’s expertise in delivering sophisticated projects tailored for regulated markets, leveraging its pivotal shared ledger functionality through Corda, alongside its Digital Currency solution from the newly introduced R3 Digital Markets product suite. In tandem, Quant also contributes its proficiency in enabling programmability and interoperability across various monetary forms, supplying the orchestration and API layer through its Overledger platform.
Participating major global banks and institutions will utilise the platform to explore diverse retail and wholesale payment scenarios, including delivery versus payment, e-commerce, bond issuance, and cards gateway integration. Leading the system integration charge is DXC, supported by Coadjute’s innovative Home Purchasing Business Application, a property market infrastructure and settlement model constructed on R3’s Corda.
R3’s and Quant’s technologies, purpose-built for deployment in highly regulated contexts like this, offer robust solutions. R3’s shared ledger and Quant’s Overledger API-based platform have the capacity to connect disparate systems effectively. This strategic choice highlights their complementary methods in achieving interoperability as well as seamless integration.
Shared goal
Kate Karimson, chief commercial officer at R3, said: “The RLN initiative is bringing the industry together to work towards a shared goal – harnessing the benefits of tokenised finance in a manner that is regulated, orderly and interoperable.
“Being selected to lead and deliver the technology stream for the Experimentation Phase underpinning the UK RLN is a huge milestone for R3, and a testament to our technology when it comes to powering the digitalisation of real-world assets and currencies in complex and highly regulated industries.
“In the future, the RLN could provide a digital infrastructure that firms across the ecosystem can connect into and innovate further. We’re excited to be part of a truly pioneering initiative that will hopefully inform other future innovations.”
Jana Mackintosh, MD, payment innovation and resilience at UK Finance, also commented: “R3’s shared ledger technology is a great asset to this experimentation phase of work. This project is being run to test hypotheses about the envisaged benefits of a UK RLN as a platform-for-innovation, and will be integral to futureproofing and progressing the UK’s financial infrastructure.
“Quant’s experience developing connectivity and smart contracts will prove invaluable to the UK RLN proof-of-concept as we look to simulate the integration of participants’ existing systems and explore payments programmability that enhances use cases and business flows.”
In addition, Gilbert Verdian, CEO and founder at Quant, said: “We live in a digital age, in which people and companies expect digital finance to operate globally at speed, with better security and at scale – but our legacy payments and financial infrastructure has not kept up. As the UK seeks a leadership position in financial markets, projects like the RLN highlight the central role that shared ledgers will play in this transition and offer a model we can extend to other markets.”
