Global Custodian Spring 2020 | Page 46

[ D E PA R T M E N T | H E D ] The likes of BNY Mellon and State Street have given a number of the senior staff freedom to discuss and explore the con- cept, with both highlighting the potential of tokenisation in particular. When it comes to actually servicing or holding the assets though, their activity is tempered while regulations are still forming around the phenomenon. Therefore, many of those wanting to play a part in the story 46 Global Custodian Spring 2020 of cryptocurrency from the outset have sought employment elsewhere. Alexandre Kech had worked in secu- rities services for over 20 years before he created Onchain Custodian, a custo- dy service for institutional clients and accredited investors to manage digital assets. He had worked at BNY Mellon for four years before joining SWIFT and spearheading the organisation's securities standards and markets operations for 17 years in Asia-Pacific. “Once you have ‘seen the light’ - and securities service experts get it faster than many other experts - it is difficult to resist the envy to participate in the building of the future,” he explains. “If, on top of that, your bank is not able to quickly and adequately assess the potential that you are yourself seeing, it is easy to under-