Chainlink and 24 Financial Institutions Pilot AI-Blockchain Solution for $58B Corporate Actions Problem

Executive Summary

Chainlink, in collaboration with 24 prominent financial institutions, including SWIFT, DTCC, and Euroclear, has completed a pilot program demonstrating a blockchain and AI-powered solution for corporate actions processing. This initiative addresses an industry challenge estimated to cost $58 billion annually, achieving near 100% data consensus and significantly reducing processing times and manual errors within this critical financial operation.

The Event in Detail

The industry initiative, now in its second phase, expanded to include 24 global financial organizations. Participants included financial market infrastructures like SWIFT, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and Euroclear, alongside leading banks and asset managers such as UBS, DBS Bank, BNP Paribas' Securities Services, ANZ, Wellington Management, and Schroders. The program focused on streamlining the corporate actions process, which involves complex and costly tasks like dividend distributions, mergers, and acquisitions. Historically, this process is characterized by high manual intervention, with automation rates below 40%, contributing to an average cost of $34 million per event and impacting over 110,000 firm interactions. The collaboration leveraged Chainlink's oracle platform, blockchain technology, and artificial intelligence to extract, validate, and distribute corporate actions data.

Financial Mechanics

The technical architecture employed large language models (OpenAI's GPT series, Google's Gemini series, and Anthropic's Claude series) to extract structured data from unstructured corporate action announcements. Chainlink's Runtime Environment (CRE) orchestrated the validation of these multiple AI model outputs. Confirmed results were then transformed into ISO 20022-compliant messages, which were transmitted to the SWIFT Network. Concurrently, the Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) distributed these validated records across DTCC's blockchain ecosystem and other public and private blockchain environments. This dual approach ensured simultaneous access across traditional and blockchain-based platforms. The system demonstrated its ability to create unified "golden records"—a single, verified source of truth—in near real-time, achieving nearly 100% data consensus among AI models throughout testing. This process significantly reduces the reliance on manual data revalidation, a factor contributing to the $58 billion annual cost to the global financial industry.

Business Strategy & Market Positioning

This initiative positions Chainlink as a critical bridge between traditional finance (TradFi) and the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. By tackling a costly and inefficient segment of financial operations, Chainlink demonstrates its oracle network's utility in enterprise-grade applications. The strategy aligns with broader industry goals of reducing operational risk, enabling smart contract automation, and laying the foundation for scalable digital asset servicing. Financial executives, such as Nigel Dobson of ANZ, noted that the initiative demonstrates how blockchain can deliver attested, real-time corporate actions data across jurisdictions, thereby reducing operational risk. The project also addresses the necessity of solving data validation for corporate actions on-chain, crucial for the scaling and correct functioning of tokenized public equity, as highlighted by Chainlink's Sergey Nazarov. This collaboration sets a precedent for how blockchain and AI can be integrated into existing financial infrastructure, minimizing disruption while maximizing efficiency gains.

Broader Market Implications

The successful pilot holds significant implications for the broader Web3 ecosystem and the increasing institutional adoption of blockchain technology. The ability to standardize and automate corporate actions processing across diverse financial institutions and blockchain environments signifies a tangible step towards the seamless integration of TradFi and DeFi. This development can accelerate the institutional adoption of blockchain solutions by demonstrating substantial cost savings and efficiency improvements. Blockchain integration in financial services is already projected to save the industry tens of billions annually, with specific figures indicating $20 billion saved annually in payment and settlement processes and an 88% reduction in settlement times. Furthermore, the use of blockchain has been linked to a 43% drop in financial data breaches and a 53% reduction in compliance-related fraud cases. This initiative with Chainlink further validates the potential for blockchain to reduce operational costs and enhance security in financial reporting. By providing a trusted source of truth for corporate actions, the solution is expected to boost investor confidence in tokenized assets and accelerate the transition towards a more efficient, interconnected global financial system.