Deloitte has made an undisclosed investment in financial services blockchain outfit SETL.
News of the investment follows the announcement last month that Deloitte, SETL and Metro Bank had successfully trialed a contactless payment card using the firm's distributed ledger technology.
Launched in July 2015 to deploy a multi-asset, multi-currency institutional payment and settlements infrastructure based on blockchain technology, SETL completed its first round of fundraising in the summer.
David Myers, head of capital markets at Deloitte, says of the new investment: “This investment demonstrates Deloitte’s commitment to help our clients build the future of financial services with emerging technologies. Blockchain has the ability to transform the industry, and we have been investing heavily in real-world applications, such as identity management, cross-border payments, loyalty, trade finance and a number of others."
Deloitte has bet big on distributed ledger, with funding for the technology taking a sizeable chunk out of the firm's £25 million Innovation Investments scheme. The firm is currently setting up an Emea financial services blockchain centre in Dublin that will house a team of 50 developers and designers and is working with five prominent blockchain companies - BlockCypher, Bloq, ConsenSys, Loyyal and the Stellar Development Foundation - on a wide-range of proof-of-concept applications across the financial sphere.