Largest US Clearinghouse DTCC Acquires Digital Assets Firm Securrency

October 19, 2023 - Depository Trust and Clearing Corp (DTCC), the largest US clearing house processing trillions of dollars of securities on a daily basis, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Securrency Inc. The acquisition of Securrency, a developer of institutional-grade, digital asset infrastructure, marks DTCC's first acquisition in 10 years and, as stated in DTCC's press announcement today, “will position DTCC to provide global leadership in bridging best-in-class industry practices with advanced digital technology to encourage acceptance and adoption of digital assets.” 

According to a report by Bloomberg, referring to un-named inside sources with knowledge of the deal, DTCC is paying around $50million for Securrency. 

Securrency will become a fully-owned subsidiary of DTCC and will operate under the name DTCC Digital Assets. Nadine Chakar, CEO of Securrency, will join DTCC as Managing Director, Global Head of DTCC Digital Assets, reporting to Lynn Bishop, DTCC Managing Director and Chief Information Officer. Chakar will also join the DTCC Management Committee. In addition, Dan Doney, CTO and founder of Securrency, John Hensel, COO and co-founder, and other members of the Securrency leadership team, as well as roughly 100 Securrency staff of full-time employees or contractors, will become DTCC employees.

Frank La Salla, President, CEO and Director, DTCC

Frank La Salla, President, CEO and Director, DTCC, commented on the acquisition, “Securrency is an important strategic acquisition that will give us the technology to drive market-wide transformation by enabling end-to-end digital lifecycle processing for tokenized assets, digital currencies and other financial instruments. By bringing together DTCC’s commitment to providing market stability and our unparalleled network of financial market participants with the sophistication of the Securrency technology, we will be in a leading position to unlock the value of digital assets and help guide the industry through its digital transformation journey. We believe this next generation of financial market infrastructure will further reduce settlement times, facilitate market transparency and risk management, enhance regulatory oversight and controls, and unlock efficiency and innovation to create an improved investor experience.”

DTCC sayas that it will fast-track development of its enterprise digital asset platform to unlock the power of institutional DeFi. DTCC will leverage the technology over time to embed digital assets within its existing products and services, develop new, regulatory-compliant blockchain-based offerings and explore use cases with the industry, including buyside asset managers, broker-dealers and custodians, to collaborate on new DTCC blockchain-based solutions.

DTCC will "lead the industry’s development" of a robust, global digital infrastructure" by licensing the Securrency technology and offering professional services. Firms will be able to leverage the technology to transform and evolve their operating models and to create innovative, new digital asset services alone or in collaboration with other market participants – similar to how WisdomTree licenses Securrency’s software as part of the infrastructure for its WisdomTree Prime™ offering that provides tokenized assets and funds via digital wallets for retail investors and consumers.

Nadine Chakar, CEO of Securrency

Nadine Chakar, CEO of Securrency commented, “As we join forces with DTCC, we are excited to bring together DTCC’s infrastructure capabilities with Securrency’s technology to embrace a future where the digitization of capital markets is at the forefront of innovation... Together, we will unlock opportunities to reimagine compliance, liquidity, efficiency and interoperability in trading real-world assets on the blockchain.”

DTCC also plans to provide global leadership to foster industry-wide collaboration to help avoid fragmentation with different digital technologies and standards using Securrency’s technology to address this issue by acting as a DLT-agnostic harmonization layer that promotes interoperability, liquidity, transparency and security.

La Salla further said, “We look forward to building on our past work to drive consensus around the standards, controls and frameworks necessary to support regulatory-compliant digital asset solutions and development of the right architecture and infrastructure to ensure widespread interoperability. We’re excited to welcome our new colleagues to the DTCC team and to begin collaborating as a group to strengthen market stability and resilience and drive greater efficiencies, productivity, risk mitigation and liquidity in the global financial markets.”

DTCC’s digital asset strategy focuses on establishing the digital infrastructure to extend its core services to the digital asset ecosystem and deliver no-touch, end-to-end processing. Its strategic priorities include:

• Exploring development of digital products and services to address gaps in market infrastructure or that optimize the end-to-end lifecycle
• Establishing a control framework for digital asset securities
• Executing client-driven pilots aligned to the firm’s core capabilities and services
• Advancing industry-wide dialogue on interoperability to inform future connectivity models

In 2022, DTCC’s subsidiaries processed securities transactions valued at U.S. $2.5 quadrillion and its depository subsidiary provided custody and asset servicing for securities issues from over 150 countries and territories valued at U.S. $72 trillion. DTCC’s Global Trade Repository service, through locally registered, licensed, or approved trade repositories, processes more than 17.5 billion messages annually.

Securrency is an institutional-grade digital asset infrastructure provider that offers solutions to market participants in order to facilitate the trading, settlement and servicing of digital securities and assets. Securrency's innovative, institutional-grade product suite enables broad, secure and compliant access to financial markets to facilitate efficient settlement and increase global liquidity. Securrency's capabilities should drive institutional adoption of blockchain technology, including tokenization and financial process automation, near-real time payment and post trade settlement, and cross-chain interoperability.