Paxos Standard digitizes and mobilizes asset types.  Paxos have recently announced the launch of the Paxos Settlement Service.  The settlement service facilitates the simultaneous exchange of cash on particular types of US-listed securities.  This will happen on the private version of Paxos on the Ethereum.

In the past year, Paxos announced the pilot consisting of two companies:  Credit Suisse and Société Générale.  The pilot is getting a covered no-action letter from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The two companies are the first to benefit from the regulatory green light, which will permit the two companies to leverage Paxos to settle securities trade directly between each other.

Melayna Ingram, Paxos’ Head of Securities Products, stated, “We spent years studying the groundwork to get the pilot running.”  Further said, “Now it’s live and settling stock. We are calling it a pilot because we are approved to do this under a limited number of participants and volume and a limited list of securities that are permitted.” 

The no-action letter from the SEC will enable the company to settle equities on the blockchain. This is also a way to understand how the product works.  This, in turn, will help the participants know what they will need from Paxos and the market appetite.

Sydney Ifergan, the Crypto Expert, tweeted:  “#PaxosStandard has introduced a novel concept in the way equities settlement can be done.  This is new and is set to gain widespread adoption.”

Credit Suisse and Société Générale on Paxos Standard

Jeffrey Rosen, COO of Société Générale stated that they would be able to customize the systems to suit their needs to introduce further a technology which will positively impact the cost structure in terms of immediate and long term gains.

Emmanuel Aidoo, head of digital assets markets for Credit Suisse, stated that they believe in the process of securities settlement, which is greatly optimized using the blockchain.  Further stated that with the Paxos Settlement Service, they would benefit from these efficiencies in the first hand.  They considered this as an essential milestone in the Digital Markets Strategy to foresee the opportunities to leverage the product across different asset classes in the future.

Ingram on Paxos Standard

Early this year, no-action letters were given to TurnKey Jet and Pocketful of Quarters.

Ingram stated that the front office and trading had been involved in tons of improvement in terms of speed, and the level of sophistication facilitated by the back office is aligned with the front office providing for a meaningful step in the industry. They were thus facilitating digital transformation in the back office operations.