The London Stock Exchange Group has completed its first-ever blockchain-powered fundraising, enabling MembersCap to raise capital for a private fund through an end-to-end digital markets infrastructure.
Summary
- The transaction covered issuance, trading, and settlement on a single platform.
- LSEG’s blockchain infrastructure aims to cut settlement times from 40–50 days to near-instant, while improving transparency.
- Banks, exchanges, and asset managers are increasingly exploring blockchain and tokenization to modernize capital markets.
The London Stock Exchange Group has completed its first-ever blockchain-powered transaction, marking a major step forward in the use of distributed ledger technology in the TradFi markets, Financial Times reported on Monday. The deal involved MembersCap, a reinsurance asset manager, which used LSEG’s newly built digital markets infrastructure to raise capital for its latest private fund.
The transaction is particularly noteworthy because it was fully executed on LSEG’s blockchain platform, covering the entire fundraising process—from issuance to trading and settlement. That end-to-end functionality sets it apart from other blockchain-related initiatives in financial markets, which typically address only one part of the transaction pipeline.
“For private markets in particular, the existing process is very manual, it’s very costly, and it sometimes takes up to 40–50 days for settlement. We are creating infrastructure for the 21st century,” said Darko Hajdukovic, head of digital markets infrastructure at LSEG.
The system was developed in collaboration with Microsoft, which holds a 4% stake in LSEG.
London Stock Exchange Group leads the way as blockchain adoption accelerates in TradFi
Although this is the first end-to-end blockchain-powered capital raise by a major global exchange, the adoption of blockchain by traditional financial institutions has been accelerating. Banks, exchanges, and asset managers are increasingly exploring distributed ledger technology to speed up settlements, reduce costs, and improve transparency in financial markets.
Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, recently highlighted the technology’s potential for TradFi, saying: “Tokenisation will revolutionise investing. Markets wouldn’t need to close. Transactions that currently take days would clear in seconds.”