Deloitte has invested an undisclosed amount in SETL, a blockchain company focused on providing post-trade settlement solutions in financial services.
The investment, Deloitte’s first in a blockchain startup, is part of an effort to “diversify our business model beyond the typical bread and butter of professional services firms,” Vimi Grewal-Carr, Deloitte’s head of innovation, said in an
The announcement follows the successful trial of the London-based SETL’s digitized payments platform last month, in which more than 100 users were given contactless smartcards to make purchases from merchants with contactless terminals.
That allowed Deloitte to test its blockchain identification system, Smart ID. With both blockchains in communication with each other, participants in the test created their identity records on the Deloitte blockchain, with key details certified by Deloitte and then established on the SETL blockchain to set up user credentials.
“By using blockchain for identity verification via our Smart ID Platform or for processing trades on SETL’s blockchain, we can provide our clients with practical use cases for a disruptive technology,” David Myers, head of capital markets, said in the announcement.
Earlier this year Deloitte also partnered with blockchain companies BlockCypher, Bloq, ConsenSys, Loyyal (formerly known as Ribbit.me) and the Stellar Development Foundation, to provide practical blockchain-based services in its consulting business.
