Leading figures from the worlds of finance, politics, journalism and diplomacy gathered in London Tuesday evening, 31 January 2017, for Deutsche Börse’s Annual Reception. CEO Carsten Kengeter welcomed around 300 guests to the venerable City guildhall of Merchant Taylors.
Kengeter told the assembled guests that Deutsche Börse Group had already started to make good on the pledge he made a year ago to “build better markets together”.
Referring to progress on the Group's planned merger with London Stock Exchange, Kengeter said, “The merger has now entered its third and decisive stage. If everything works out well we will soon begin to construct a capital market bridge, linking Europe's financial centre with the regulatory hub of the Continent.”
Guest speaker Blythe Masters, CEO of the fintech company Digital Asset Holdings, followed Kengeter's comments with a speech on the potential transformation of financial markets which Blockchain will bring in coming years. Masters predicted that the first meaningful commercial applications of distributed ledger technology (DLT) were likely to take place by the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018. Over the next several years, Blockchain was likely to become mainstream, but she added that it would be decades before the new technology was fully exploited. She drew a parallel with the development of the Internet: “Blockchain will be what the Internet was for information transmission, for the storage, security and value of data.”
Following a round of applause for the keynote speaker, Carsten Kengeter invited guests to continue their discussions of recent and future developments over a buffet supper.
The Deutsche Börse London reception has become firmly established as a must-attend event on the City's calendar.
