Securities Depository, STO platform design start… Proof of concept

On May 5, 2021, an article about the implementation of blockchain technologies by the Korean Securities Depository appeared on the Korean resource www.dt.co.kr. The Korean company Blocko was chosen as a partner.

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In order to respond to the rapidly changing environment of domestic and overseas capital markets, the Korea Securities Depository is designing a system to verify the concept of the STO (Securities-Type Token Disclosure) platform.

According to the financial investment industry on the 5th, the KSD selected ‘Blocko’ a domestic blockchain platform developer, as the ‘STO platform concept verification service provider’ last month.

STO is a new investment model that uses blockchain cryptocurrency technology to divide real assets, such as real estate and bonds, into multiple tokens to attract a large number of investors. Investors can divide large-scale assets and hold shares through securities tokens, which can dramatically shorten the time and cost of trading in securities and increase accessibility significantly.

Currently, STO is emerging as a new investment market in advanced countries such as the United States and Japan.

In order to cope with the introduction of STOs in Korea, the Depository also began to build and design a distributed ledger-based STO securities infrastructure network for the purpose of conceptual verification. By building it as a gateway API system, it plans to improve the accessibility of participating organizations such as securities companies and supervisory organizations in the future.

In addition, it plans to design and test a standard-linked distributed ledger that can be extended to other unlisted securities such as small offerings and OTC derivatives.

The expected period of system construction is 5 months, and it is expected to begin early this month and end in early October. After the completion of the project, the final review result is announced at the end of November after intensive simulation tests for two months.

Currently, Busan, where the headquarters of the Securities Depository is located, has been designated as a special block-chain regulatory free zone, and is piloting various investment products such as’Real Estate STO’ in cooperation with several innovative companies. In response to this, the depository is not planning to pursue a project directly connected with Busan City, but plans to increase the contact point in the future.

A KSD official said, “It can be said that it is a similar model in that the Blockchain Regulation Free Zone currently in progress with the City of Busan and the STO concept verification project conducted by the KSD are targeting virtual assets.” “The scope of the verification project did not include links with these pilot projects.”

He added, “This project is a business that links concept verification, and we are not considering commercialization within this year.”

Reporter Kim Byung-tak