22 November 2018
This first-of-its kind initiative leverages distributed ledger technology to open up significant opportunities for companies, company personnel, investors, public authorities and financial service providers.
Several leading Finnish companies have collaborated to develop a new blockchain-based platform that digitalizes the share ledger, issuance and trading of non-listed company shares. The platform provides a reliable, simple and entirely digital way for non-listed company share trading by digitalizing the tokenized share register, shareholder register, issuance of new shares and secondary market trading of shares.
New growth opportunities for companies and more transparent information to public authorities
A significant share of Finnish household and enterprise financial assets are in non-listed company shares. However, for the most part, trading on this asset class has not yet been digitalized and relies on manual processes. As a consequence, non-listed company shares lack liquidity and the validity of shareholder information is challenging to verify for investors, financial service providers and public authorities.
The newly-developed platform will change this situation.As private sector companies and public authorities are part of the same process, verifiable information can flow seamlessly between all stakeholders, making non-listed company share trading fully digital, liquid and easy. In addition to reducing administrative burden, this new digital platform improves accessibility and visibility to this asset class for all parties and enables the creation of new financial products and aftermarket services.
”Blockchain presents tremendous opportunities for our society by establishing a new way of creating trust. In cooperation with our customers we’ve been able to demonstrate the potential of the technology by leveraging it in creating a fully digital identity for companies as well as digitalizing the share ledger, issuance and trading of non-listed company shares. This revolutionizes the way investors and startups can transact", says Markus Hautala, Head of Blockchain Solutions at Tieto.
Building a global market-ready platform with customer piloting to start in 2019
Digital business and consumer information services provider Asiakastieto Group, financial groups Nordea and OP Group, investment service group Privanet and software and services company Tieto carried out all the development work in Finland. The project also included experts and advisory from the Finnish Tax Administration, Finnish Patent and Registration Office as well as Borenius Attorneys.
While the network platform is developed in collaboration between Finnish industry players, it could also be scaled outside of Finland. The technology solutions are not geographically limited. The platform is based on open source Corda and Hyperledger Indy distributed ledger technologies.
The newly-developed distributed ledger-based business network is currently a proof-of-concept and the plan is to start customer pilots during 2019. The consortium is looking forward to involving start-ups and investors in contributing to this initiative during the development of the business network. These communities are welcome to contact Markus Hautala from Tieto, markus.hautala(at)tieto.com, for more details.
For additional information, please contact:
Jyrki Korhonen, Development Director, Digital Processes, Asiakastieto Group, tel. +358 44 242 2292
Ville Sointu, Head of Emerging Technologies, Nordea, tel. +358 50 377 1699
Katja Keitaanniemi, EVP, Banking, Corporate and Institutional Customers, OP Financial Group, contact via OP Communications +358 50 5239904
Kimmo Lönnmark, CEO of Privanet Securities Ltd, tel. +358 50 67 541
Markus Hautala, Head of Blockchain Solutions, Tieto, tel. +358 40 182 4299 / Tieto News desk, news(at)tieto.com, +358 40 570 4072
About the ecosystem partners:
Asiakastieto Group is one of the leading providers of digital business and consumer information services in the Nordic countries. The Group's products and services are primarily used for risk management, finance and administration, decision-making and sales and marketing purposes. Asiakastieto and UC combined in June 2018. The Group operates in Finland under the brand Suomen Asiakastieto and in Sweden under the brand UC. Asiakastieto Group is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. More information at www.asiakastieto.fi and www.uc.se.
Nordea. We build strong and close relationships through our engagement with customers and society. Whenever people strive to reach their goals and realise their dreams, we are there to provide relevant financial solutions. We are the largest bank in the Nordic region and among the ten largest financial groups in Europe in terms of total market capitalisation with around 11 million customers. The Nordea share is listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki, Nasdaq Copenhagen and Nasdaq Stockholm exchanges. Read more about us on nordea.com.
OP Financial Group is Finland's largest financial services group whose mission is to create sustainable prosperity, security and wellbeing for its owner-customers and in its operating region by means of its strong capital base and efficiency. OP Financial Group consists of 156 member cooperative banks, its central cooperative OP Cooperative, and the latter's subsidiaries and affiliates. The Group has a staff of 12,000 and 1.9 million owner-customers. www.op.fi
Privanet Group Oyj is the parent company in a Finnish investment group. The group includes Privanet Capital Markets Ltd which focuses on capital market transactions, and Privanet Securities Ltd which operates Finland’s only secondary market for trading securities of unlisted companies as well as offers crowdfunding to growth companies through its AROUND platform. Privanet Group’s main function is to bring together companies in need of funding and investors. Privanet Group serves about 16 000 customers in Finland and has offices in 12 Finnish cities. The customer base consists of private persons, companies and institutional investors. privanet.fi, privanetgroup.fi
Tieto aims to capture the significant opportunities of the data-driven world and turn them into lifelong value for people, business and society. We aim to be customers’ first choice for business renewal by combining our software and services capabilities with a strong drive for co-innovation and ecosystems. www.tieto.com