HSBC aims to shift $20 billion worth of assets to a new blockchain-based custody platform by March, in one of the biggest deployments yet of the widely-hyped but still unproven technology by a global bank. From a report: The platform, known as Digital Vault, will give investors real-time access to records of securities bought on private markets, HSBC told Reuters, and seeks to capitalize on booming interest in such investments by yield-hungry investors. Banks and other financial firms have invested billions of dollars into finding uses for blockchain, a digital ledger that can be instantly and transparently updated. Few, however, have come up with practical or widely-used applications. Proponents say the blockchain will upend the financial sector by cutting out costly processes or the need for middlemen – though there have been few solid examples yet of such revolutionary use. The HSBC platform will digitize paper-based records of private placements, using blockchain to reduce the time it takes investors to make checks or queries on holdings.

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Source: Slashdot – HSBC Swaps Paper Records For Blockchain To Track Billion Worth of Assets