# Process Equity Trades in Parallel on DLT

> The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation launched a parallel settlement environment based on distributed ledger technology through its Project Ion initiative. The platform processed an average of more than 100,000 bilateral equity transactions per day, reaching peaks of nearly 160,000 transactions. The classic settlement system of the organization continues to serve as the definitive legal book of record.

**Sector:** Tertiary sector · **Industry:** Banking and financial services · **Organisation:** Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, R3 · **Maturity level:** Production

Canonical URL: https://www.sapientblock.com/en/use-cases/depository-trust-aktiengeschaefte-parallel-dlt-abwickeln

## Documentation status

- **Project status:** Production
- **Evidence:** Evidence medium
- **Editorial review:** pending

## Description

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, together with R3, has provided a DLT platform for parallel settlement of stock trades. The infrastructure targets institutional market participants seeking to accelerate and more efficiently reconcile their bilateral securities transactions. The traditional clearing system continues to act as the leading authority, while the DLT environment demonstrates practical viability under high market load.

With Project Ion, the central US financial market infrastructure DTCC responded to the growing demand for faster settlement cycles and modern technology. The platform uses R3 Corda to reconcile and settle bilateral stock transactions in parallel to the existing system. In production, the environment processed on average more than 100,000 transactions per trading day, proving scalability for peak loads. Participating financial institutions mirrored their business data into the DLT, testing consistency and resilience without legal risks. This approach establishes a proven path for gradual modernisation of central market infrastructures without a hard system break.

## Benefits

- Preparing institutional trading partners for accelerated settlement cycles
- Reducing bilateral reconciliation efforts between financial institutions
- High operational resilience through modern redundancy architecture
- Real-world testing under extremely high daily transaction volumes
- Minimising operational system risks through parallel operation alongside the legacy system
- Relieving repetitive checks through automated transaction matching
- Increased process transparency in resolving discrepant booking entries

## Challenges

- Integration effort for connecting internal banking systems to the DLT interfaces
- Synchronization of states between existing legacy systems and the DLT network
- Ensuring regulatory recognition during a complete system transition
- Need to acquire expertise in handling DLT-based clearing software

## Technology foundation

The solution is based on the private enterprise DLT platform R3 Corda, specifically designed for regulated financial markets. Corda enables bilateral transaction reconciliation and strict confidentiality between participating market actors without global data dissemination.

## Sources

- [Project Ion Platform Now Live in Parallel Production Environment](https://www.dtcc.com/press-releases/2022/project-ion)