France approves trading of unlisted securities

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The government has adopted new rules that will allow banks and fintech firms to create blockchain platforms for trading unlisted securities. This change will allow the trading of the assets without relying on intermediaries and theoretically at an almost instantaneous rate.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Meir said that the new rules would be good for Paris as a financial center, believing that the use of that new technology would allow fintech firms and other financial entities to develop new ways of trading securities that were faster, cheaper, more transparent and safer.

This step is part of the country's goals aimed at strengthening Paris as a center for financial innovation.

The French government has been working on various blockchain efforts, including a blockchain working group launched in May of this year, in order to study the implementation of the blockchain, to study its advantages and applications for the public sector.

Elsewhere, the London Stock Exchange Group in July entered into a partnership with IBM to test a private platform for unlisted securities. The platform was designed to digitize both the ownership of securities and the capital structure of small and medium-sized enterprises.