GROW’s back office solution for fund administrators, built on global enterprise technology and services firm R3’s Corda blockchain platform, has been deployed by Vanguard Australia. The announcement marks one of the first examples of a successful live deployment of blockchain technology in Australia’s financial services industry. 

GROW’s DLTA platform provides Vanguard Australia with a single integrated back-office solution for global assets. Leveraging R3’s Corda blockchain technology, which was purpose-built for complex and highly regulated industries, DLTA delivers a shared system of record for all fund and investor transactions and holdings and replaces time-consuming and inefficient spreadsheet reconciliation processes.

Traditionally, fund administration has been highly manual and disconnected, with every participant maintaining their own on-premise system of record and no modern API interfaces. This results in a higher cost to serve customers, significant risk of manual error, reputational damage, security threats and vulnerability. Just opening a new customer account can require sharing more than 10 files, and a minimum of five days to complete the process. A similar process is required for updating records, deposits, withdrawals and closing accounts. 

With the DLTA platform, Vanguard Australia has achieved 100% STP for the reconciliation of investor funds. This saves approximately 100 back and middle office hours each week from all participants involved in the process. It also removes the need for humans to investigate errors, which can lead to poor investor experiences, churn and often negative financial impact.

Mat Keely, CEO at GROW, commented: “GROW has long believed in the importance of technology evolution in financial services. Through our partnership with R3 we have built what we believe is a step change in not only the Australian Superannuation market but also the global asset administration landscape. Vanguard has shown that functionality, cost and investor proposition can all evolve very quickly when the technology partners can support their ambition. We are excited about what is next for our relationship with Vanguard and even more excited about what we can do in partnership with fund and pension managers globally.”

David E. Rutter, CEO at R3, commented: “This is exactly the kind of use case we designed Corda for, in collaboration with financial institutions across the globe. We’re excited to have facilitated yet another real-world deployment of blockchain technology in financial markets, as the industry continues to consolidate around platforms that were purpose-built with the needs of participants, regulators, and the future of the entire industry in mind.”

MIchael Lovett, CEO at Vanguard Super Australia, commented: “We were really pleased with the success of the launch from an operational perspective. The focus on higher volume join and money in transactions being straight through the process has been validated. The product verification phase allowed us to iron out most of the potential issues, and the partnership with GROW started strongly. The cross-collaboration between the two businesses was a highlight during the pre-and post-launch phases.”