Vanguard, the world’s second-largest index fund manager, has announced the successful completion of the first phase of its blockchain pilot trialing the digitization of asset-backed securities (ABS). The pilot has seen Vanguard partner with a large U.S.-based ABS provider, distributed ledger technology provider Symbiont, and financial institutions BNY Mellon and Citi, to model the full life cycle of securities settlement using a distributed ledger technology network. Vanguard and Symbiont envisage later phases of the pilot will integrate smart contracts into the ABS issuance and settlement process, offering “increased information flow, enhance[d] price discovery and secondary market liquidity” and the automated …