Bitcoin-inspired ledger technology is taking its first steps in foreign-exchange markets. Companies that provide payments systems to banks are unveiling products that use distributed ledgers to lower the costs of cross-border transactions, amid signs that stricter regulations have pushed smaller lenders to cut their participation in currency...
CLS Group, the blockchain-based company that settles the majority of the world's currency transactions, is planning to launch a New York-based forex service. By lowering the costs of cross-border transactions, the service will help medium and small operations that have been reducing their currency market participation due to increased regulation driving up the costs involved. The new service will use Hyperledger, an open-source collaborative project, which is also used by Swift, the global provider of secure financial messaging services.