Partnership addresses accelerating market demand for flexible, institutional-grade infrastructure for the integrated management of asset classes

London - 26 January, 2021 — IHS Markit, a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, today announced a partnership with METACO, the leading provider of security-critical software and infrastructure to Tier 1 banks in the digital asset ecosystem. The partnership delivers best-in-class post-trade securities processing capabilities in digital assets for financial institutions.

As the institutional adoption of digital assets accelerates, banks and financial institutions are hindered by the lack of available institutional-grade infrastructure to fit their needs. To address this need, IHS Markit's post-trade securities processing platform is integrated with METACO Harmonize, a secure digital asset orchestration system, to provide a single multi-asset platform for financial institutions to securely custody and manage digital assets alongside traditional assets. This integrated platform provides access for institutional clients to a highly scalable, multi-tenant software solution that secures, automates and standardizes the trade, settlement and corporate actions lifecycles.

"The partnership provides a seamless integration and utilizes both firms' cloud first philosophy and infrastructure, with IHS Markit's Integrated Message Bridge (IMB) providing the gateway between the movement of traditional and digital assets, while leveraging the industry standard messaging protocols inherent within our post-trade securities platform," said Ankush Zutshi, vice president, corporate actions and securities processing, IHS Markit. "We are excited to partner with METACO to provide a unified, integrated solution for the secure orchestration of digital asset workflows and the safekeeping of digital assets along with traditional."

METACO Harmonize enables institutions to securely manage any end-to-end digital asset use cases from cryptocurrency custody and trading to tokenization, smart contract management and decentralized finance (DeFi). As the digital asset industry matures, most organizations require optionality to reduce the risk of third-party dependency, seeking to work with multiple vaults, sub-custodians, and liquidity providers. METACO Harmonize delivers the most flexible and secure custody solutions in the market in combination with the secure orchestration of workflows across the entire digital stack. It transforms the complexity of working with multiple self-custody providers, custodians, and other solutions into an end-to-end secure, highly scalable, and agile stack with full distribution of all processes to eliminate any single point of failure.

Seamus Donoghue, VP of Strategic Alliances METACO, said, "There remain many frictions for banks and other large financial institutions entering the crypto markets. METACO Harmonize, our digital asset orchestration platform, is a unique offering that ensures end-to-end security with no single point of failure across all digital asset processes while delivering the scalability and agility required by the world`s largest financial institutions. Our partnership with IHS Markit integrates their market-leading post-trade securities processing capabilities to provide firms with the highest level of security while delivering the flexibility and agility they need to successfully operate at scale and with agility in the rapidly growing digital asset industry."

The IHS Markit Securities Processing solution enables clients to redefine their post-trade technologies and processes to gain a competitive advantage, achieve market differentiation and accelerate business growth. It allows users to replace multiple applications and discrete processes with a cloud platform and integrated post-trade framework that automates and standardizes securities processing across the trade and settlement lifecycle.

IHS Markit provides industry-leading data, software and technology platforms and managed services to tackle some of the most difficult challenges in financial markets. IHS Markit helps customers better understand complicated markets, reduce risk, operate more efficiently and comply with financial regulation.

About IHS Markit

IHS Markit is a global leader in information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide. Our company partners with clients in business, finance and government to help them see the big picture with unrivaled insights that lead to well-informed, confident decisions. IHS Markit serves more than 50,000 key customers in over 140 countries, including 85 percent of the Fortune Global 500. Headquartered in London, IHS Markit (NYSE: INFO) is committed to sustainable, profitable growth.

About METACO

METACO is the leading provider of security-critical software and infrastructure enabling financial institutions to enter and capitalize on the burgeoning digital asset economy. The company is backed by top institutional shareholders and trusted by leading banks, custodians, exchanges and infrastructure providers globally.

Founded in 2015 in Switzerland, METACO brings together a diverse team of software, security, finance and cryptography specialists with close links to the banking, regulatory and academic sectors.