CAST Challenge: The security token ecosystem gathers to the launch of its second edition

After a successful first edition in 2022, the second edition of CAST CHALLENGE, an open-source hackathon initiated by a plurality of financial and technological institutions (ABN-AMRO, AXA IM, Banco Santander, Crédit Agricole CIB, Société Générale-FORGE and VISA), aims to promote new models for digitizing capital markets through distributed ledger technologies.

The hackathon, organised in the framework of the “Ethereum Community Conference – EthCC Week”, will be held during the ADAN trade association’s annual Web3 Leaders Forum (WLF) conference on July 18^th and 19^th 2023 at the historical stock exchange building Palais Brongniart in Paris, France. It will bring together a group of financial and technological actors involved in building interoperability models based on CAST and similar market standards.

Societe Generale-FORGE (SG-FORGE), the Societe Generale Group’s regulated subsidiary dedicated to crypto-assets, alongside many other key players in the security token market, is launching this second edition of the CAST Challenge, in particular with the support of Crédit Agricole CIB, which will support the use case on On-Chain settlement, following on from the launch of the “so|bond” framework (enabling a better distribution of roles), and the EUR CoinVertible (the first stablecoin deployed on a public blockchain (Ethereum) for institutional investors).

The CAST Challenge thus aims to:

• Build bridges between traditional financial markets and the crypto-asset ecosystem;
• Support the adoption of blockchain technology for financial use cases in the real economy, with a secure and transparent regulatory framework;
• Promote new open source market processes and rules to digitalize capital markets through new technologies.

In addition to jury members from international financial players, the CAST Challenge has invited representatives from several major international and European institutions, including the European Commission, the ICMA, the ISDA and the OECD. It will notably include a keynote speech by Mr. Jan Ceyssens from the European Commission. Candidate projects will be mentored by members of the jury and BeMyApp staff. Besides, CAST-certified partners from the auditing, consulting and IT sectors will be invited to participate to the CAST Challenge, including Accenture, OCTO Technology, Onepoint, KPMG, PwC and Grant Thornton. The hackathon will take place over two days:

• The first day will be dedicated to the ideation phase and preparation of pitches for the two use-cases;
• The second day will be punctuated by conferences, partner events and the CAST CHALLENGE projects’ presentation to the jury. At the end of the day, the winners will receive their prizes in the Grand Auditorium of the Palais Brongniart.

Applications to the CAST CHALLENGE are open to all companies – fintechs or major groups – up to and including June 30th, 2023. To register, go to: https://www.cast-challenge.com/.

Jan Ceyssens, Head of the Digital Finance Unit at DG FISMA (Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union), European Commission:“CAST is a great example of a private sector initiative, aimed at standardizing digital asset market practices and reinforcing regulatory developments such as MiCAR and the DLT pilot regime adopted within the European Union.”

Stéphane Blemus, Secretary-General, Societe Generale-FORGE:“We are delighted to be launching this second edition of the CAST Challenge alongside key partners. CAST is, to date, the most comprehensive international initiative to build common financial and technological rules enabling the interoperability of blockchain-based financial projects and the scaling up of the use of common standards by market participants.”

Guénolé de Cadoudal, Head of Digital Assets Group for Crédit Agricole CIB:“We are delighted to be able to contribute to the work in the marketplace that will enable greater cooperation in an emerging market that relies on disintermediation technology.”

Martijn Siebrand, ABN AMRO, Digital Assets ecosystem manager: “We are very pleased to be able to contribute on developing standards for bridging the traditional and the digital asset world together with other financial institutions.”

Laurence Arnold, AXA Investment Managers, Head of Innovation Management and Strategic Initiatives: “The evolution of our ecosystem requires strong cooperation. We are participating again this year in the CAST Challenge, which last year already provided us with fundamental bricks for the development of the tokenization of financial assets. AXA IM supports and contributes to this rich new edition through its participants and work.”

Gabriel Callsen, ICMA, Director, FinTech and Digitalisation: “The 2nd edition of the CAST challenge provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how ICMA’s Bond Data Taxonomy and the FINOS Common Domain Model, developed by ICMA, ISDA and ISLA, can promote interoperability between traditional securities and DLT-based securities and facilitate access to capital markets.”

About Societe Generale-FORGE  

Societe Generale–FORGE, a fully integrated and regulated subsidiary of Societe Generale Group, licensed as an investment firm and authorized to provide MiFID2 investment services under the supervision of the Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution), and under the control of the Financial Markets Authority (Autorité des Marchés Financiers – AMF) and registered as PSAN (“Prestataire de Services sur Actifs Numériques” / Digital Asset Service Provider) by the AMF. Societe Generale–FORGE has built an open, secure and institutional-grade platform for digital asset operations, underpinned by full banking level safety and regulatory compliance.SG–FORGE’s solutions and digital assets comply with the CAST open-source interoperability and securitization framework.

About Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank (Crédit Agricole CIB) 

Crédit Agricole CIB is the corporate and investment bank of the Crédit Agricole Group, the world’s 10th largest banking group in terms of balance sheet size in 2021 (The Banker, July 2022). More than 8,900 employees in Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa support the Bank’s clients in meeting their financial needs worldwide. Crédit Agricole CIB offers its corporate and institutional clients a range of products and services in capital markets, investment banking, structured finance, commercial banking and international trade. A pioneer in the field of climate finance, the Bank is now a leader in this segment, with a comprehensive offering for all its customers.

Photo by Pedro Lastra on Unsplash

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