In December last year, The Investment and Savings Alliance (Tisa) launched a blockchain-powered tool aimed at reducing data management costs within the funds industry. 

Since its inception, Turn has claimed to save firms involved in the project sums in excess of £100,000 (€115,600).

For the March issue,  Funds Europe spoke to those involved, asking about the project’s future – and where the cost reductions are made.

According to Gary Bond, chief executive of Turn, the tool cuts out the ‘middleman’ in data management liability: the data vendors. 

Data on the blockchain is held across all of Turn’s members, allowing for greater transparency, according to the firm. 

Powered by Atos, its decentralised infrastructure allows Turn to operate in a democratic way. According to Jeffrey Mushens, technical policy director at Tisa, this is what makes the platform resilient. 

Leveraging blockchain means Tisa was able to build a community-based model, rather than a central database that runs the risk of becoming proprietary. 

“Nobody wants to join a proprietary blockchain which is facilitated by an individual asset manager or profit-making tech firm,” says Mushens.

Still in its early days, the utility had 14 firms signed up at the time of writing. To be truly successful, Turn needs a ‘critical mass’ of industry participation.

Read more here: Operations: Swinging the axe at data management costs

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