The technology Blockchain, the underlying crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin, is a lot about it for eighteen months, and even the Treasury is very interested in the phenomenon: the technology of storage and transmission of information, functioning as a large register digital decentralized (Distributed Ledger Technology or DLT in English), contains a great potential for trade on the financial markets.
After having launched in march a public consultation on the transfer of certain financial securities in the middle of the technology Blockchain, the Directorate general of the Treasury at Bercy has just made public its proposed order amending the monetary and financial code in this sense.
“At the request of Bruno Le Maire, the minister of Economy and Finance, the draft text is in turn subject to public consultation until 6 October, the responses could be sent to an email address dedicated : marketinfrastructures@dgtresor.gouv.fr).
“Zones of legal uncertainty”
The order serves mainly to introduce the possibility that financial securities (debt securities or capital of non-listed companies, shares of a Sicav or FCP, which are not traded on a trading platform, but otc) can be “registered in an electronic recording device shared” and not only in a securities account.
The public consultation, which had received 43 responses “from various actors : associations of place, banks, management companies, actors of the Blockchain and Fintech in general, academics, law firms and consulting”, says the Treasury in its briefing published at the end of August, had left out a consensus on the fact that it is “already possible to use technology of registry that is dispatched to the transmission of securities,” even if there are “areas of legal uncertainty or gaps” on the law applicable in respect of the property title and terms of the settlement.
Moreover, a decree in Council of State will specify the conditions of use of these recording devices electronic shared (persons authorised to manage, responsibilities, safety requirements). The conditions of pledge of the securities will also be specified subsequently by decree.
