On March 15, the Spain-based stock exchange Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME) has announced its first blockchain pilot for the digitization of the certification process of collateral pledges.

The pilot’s proof-of-concept (PoC) was designed with BME’s own distributed ledger technology division DLT-Lab. With this new test, BME tends to eliminate the need to use and exchange physical certificates by monitoring the process and ensuring real-time access for participants.

As stated in the announcement, the blockchain-powered test has shown a reduction in the total times processes by more than 80 percent.

The pilot is in partnership with regulators and many other financial institutions which includes BME subsidiary BME Clearing, the Spanish central securities depository IBERCLEAR and Renta 4 Banco – the only investment services firm listed on the BME – as the pilot firm.   

Berta Ares, Head of Digital Transformation at BME, said that the DLT technology will give less time-consuming and improve the operation and control of the system. It provides legal certainty for electronically generated certificates while ensuring privacy.  BME and Renta 4 Banco will try to complete the developments in order to have it to go live by year-end.

Last year, BME has also contributed to a joint pilot blockchain tech project of several Spanish banks such as Spanish securities regulator the National Securities Market Commission, BBVA and others. The pilot was using blockchain-based technology for registering the issuance of financial warrants.