Sir David Walker to join Setl blockchain start-up

City veteran Sir David Walker to set to join Setl, a UK blockchain start-up, as its new chairman once the fledging group completes a fundraising in coming weeks.

The London-based group said on Tuesday that it has appointed Caroline Silver, a managing director at investment banking boutique Moelis & Co, to help it raise £20m-£30m to fund its development. Once completed, Sir David will join as chairman.

At the same time, Setl has appointed Professor Philip Bond as head of its cryptography and cyber security committee. He is a visiting professor at the University of Bristol and a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford.

Its push underlines the growing interest among financial markets participants in commercialising the blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin. The technology is a complex set of algorithms that allow so-called cryptocurrencies to be traded and verified electronically without a central ledger. Banks are exploring how they can exploit new networks for payments and settlements to speed up inefficient back-office settlement systems and free up billions in capital tied up supporting trades on global markets.

Setl, which was launched in July, says its distinguishing feature from rivals is that it is able to settle any kind of payment and market transaction in central bank money. According to its chief operating officer Peter Randall, “the Setl blockchain will do for payments and finance what the container did for shipping and world trade”.

In October, Setl claimed a breakthrough in the financial services industry’s attempts to turn the technology behind bitcoin into a large-scale workable model by processing more than a billion potential payments a day.

Sir David, who stepped down as chairman of Barclays in April, is also chairman of UK fund manager Winton Capital Management. He is best known for his Walker Report of corporate governance in UK banks, whose recommendations have since shaped much of the way the financial services industry is run. Sir David, who was also formerly chairman of Morgan Stanley International, took over as chairman of Barclays in the wake of the UK bank’s fine for manipulating Libor interest rates.

“We believe that to be useful in financial services you need to be able to make transactions between banks in central bank money. That means the ability of a settlement bank to make the payment to another settlement bank using settlement assets,” said Mr Randall.

He added that Sir David’s role as chairman of various banks have given him “deep and broad experience”.

Separately, on Monday, US-based Digital Asset Holdings announced that industry veterans Cristóbal Conde and Chris Church had joined its board and management team.

Mr Conde was the former chief executive of SunGard, a US trading technology company, while Mr Church was the former chief executive for the Americas and global head of securities at Swift, the global payments network.