We’re on a mission to bring futures together by re-defining digital assets.

Certraq provides solutions, architecture and strategic consulting to organizations seeking to tokenise, issue and trade digital securities and assets. We help market participants with their transition, providing technology, advice and a strategic road map for the evolving financial ecosystem that is gradually adopting tokenisation.

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What we do

Certraq provides the architecture for tokenised securities processing, notably:

issuance
registration
digital notary/registrar
safekeeping
settlement/central securities depositories (CSDs)
corporate actions

Our proposed transitionary approach enables issuance of assets in traditional dematerialised or digitally native format, so that assets can be traded or settled simultaneously in traditional form or as digitally native tokens via a network of participating CSDs which host an immutable common ledger and provide settlement or settlement oversight for digitally native tokens.

Data immutability and finality of settlement is supported and validated using Codel, a digital notary service comprising a global hash chain scaled in the cloud and a network of peers which host a small slice of the global chain used for salting and encrypting transactions and monitoring the status of the global chain. Codel has the longest running hash chain globally and most appropriate technology for digital assets.

Who uses Certraq?

Certraq both builds CSDs and provides solutions and tokenisation architecture for;

Issuers

Asset Managers

Custodians

Brokers

Exchanges & Funds

Why CSD’s?

For the foreseeable future, it is almost certain that CSDs will play a role in settlement and to ensure regulatory compliance and investor protections and we can help.

The market participant will need to address:

The transition from traditional to tokenised assets

Issuance simultaneously in digital & traditional form

Tokenised central bank or commercial money settlement

Custody, fractionalisation and tokenisation of
real-world assets

Cross-border settlement via links with foreign participating CSDs

Maintenance of both asset types at the same time

Servicing digitally native assets - i.e. corporate actions

Synchronisation to existing legacy architecture

Tokenising real-world assets - e.g.

Real Estate

Commodities

Art & Collectibles

Intellectual Property

Collaboration with Registrars

Registrars and paying agents will continue to co-exist and develop new roles as the landscape unfolds. Regulators will require investor protections and controls. Issuers of tokenised will still want to employ specialists for IPO’s, admission to trading, corporate actions and servicing entitlements – even though these processes may be more efficient on the blockchain.

Certraq works with registrars to eliminate paper share certificates, streamline registrar processes and develop new issuance and ledger interoperability to extend liquidity for issuer assets.

Issuers of digital assets

Certraq can advise issuers and enterprises that want to raise capital by issuing tokens that represent bonds, securities or real world assets but who are concerned that their securities still need to be available to traditional investors;

Asset creation & distribution

Accessing liquidity

Ensuring compliance with regulations

Maintaining the underlying technology

Asset types

Typically the asset types for which we can provide tokenised processing design comprise:

Tokenisation of existing traditional financial securities. The process is similar to that currently used for depository receipts, whereby the underlying assets are held by a custodian & no longer traded, whilst a new issue of tokenised securities is created for investors to hold & trade.

Traditional securities issued direct into tokenised form. In this instance, an issuing company will instruct an investment bank to originate & distribute a new issue of tokenised securities.

New asset types (including carbon credits) tokenised on issue. This case is the same as for traditional securities, except that the type of asset being created is new e.g. a carbon credit rather than a bond or equity share.

Technology

Certraq’s service is designed to provide tokenisation for existing market infrastructure, without requiring re-engineering. Certraq can achieve tokenisation for all relevant participants using existing messaging systems & IT infrastructure.

ISO 20022, 15022, FIX etc. The service will provide custody & back-to-back tokenisation for 3rd party digital assets.

As an integral part of Certraq’s design, we use Codel to create immutable (verifiable) intraday settlement for Certraq primary & secondary assets, & off-chain settlement for native 3rd party digital assets.

Certraq’s design eliminates gas fees & provides predictable settlement costs.

Markus Ruetimann

Chairman
Previous roles include Group COO, Credit Suisse Asset Management, COO of Schroders, Global Head of Technology & Portfolio Services at UBS Asset Management, former CREST board member.
James Zorab

Chief Executive
Founder. Serial blockchain entrepreneur. Founder and CEO of The Ascent Group. Founder & Chief Executive, ZIP Zinc Therapeutics Ltd.
Henry Raschen

Director of Regulation
Head of finance and governance , Codel Ltd. Previous roles include Director of Regulatory Outlook HSBC Security Services.
Michael Foley

Head of Development
Previous roles include chief strategist, Equiniti, Founder & Managing Director Peter Evans Associates.