SETL, the financial blockchain specialist, today announced the opening of its Global Engineering Centre in Ipswich, UK. Ten new staff have been recruited to work in the new office and to support SETL’s international expansion, bringing SETL’s total worldwide workforce to 24. The centre was officially opened by Ben Gummer, Member of Parliament for Ipswich and Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and by Chairman of the SETL board Sir David Walker.

The new team includes blockchain technology architects and specialists for server systems analysis, enterprise storage, web development, integration and project management. SETL operations in Ipswich will be overseen by CTO Nicholas Pennington.SETL joins more than 70 growing technology businesses specialising in areas from financial technology to telecommunications and big data that are based in the Ipswich area and form part of the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership for Norfolk and Suffolk. 

SETL was launched in July 2015 to deploy a multi-asset, multi-currency institutional payment and settlements infrastructure based on blockchain technology. The SETL system will enable market participants to move cash and assets directly between each other, facilitating the immediate and final settlement of market transactions. The SETL system maintains a permissioned, distributed ledger of ownership and transaction records, simplifying the process of matching, settlement, custody, registration and transaction reporting.

Ben Gummer MP commented: “I am delighted to have been invited to open SETL’s new office here in Ipswich. They are the latest of a number of businesses choosing to locate in our tech hub. Suffolk has a thriving ICT sector, with the University of Suffolk ensuring that there is a pipeline of new local talent. Taken together with Norfolk, we have the third highest concentration of science and research parks in the country.”

Peter Randall, CEO of SETL, noted: “Since we launched in 2015, SETL has continued to expand rapidly, with new blockchain products and initiatives. Our new engineering centre will be the powerhouse that supports our growth ambitions as we deploy blockchain projects globally.”