Edena Korea, Silverlake Axis launch joint venture to build global settlement network

Lee Wook, CEO of Edena Korea (front row, right), and David Lim, co-CEO of Silverlake Axis Group (front row, left), pose with company officials after signing the joint venture agreement. [Edena Korea]

Financial technology firm Edena Korea has established a joint venture in Singapore with global financial software company Silverlake Axis Group to build a digital asset-based cross-border clearing and settlement infrastructure.

Edena Korea announced Tuesday that it signed a joint investment agreement with Silverlake Axis and launched an independent clearing infrastructure company, Edena Nexus Systems Pte. Ltd.

Edena Korea will handle the overall architecture and system design of the next-generation financial network, while Silverlake Axis will integrate existing financial infrastructure — including core banking systems — with the new platform.

The two companies plan to combine Silverlake Axis's core banking integration platform, CgW, with Edena Korea's distributed ledger-based real-time ledger synchronization technology.

Their jointly developed integration device, the EDENA Interface Device (EID), connects and extends external systems to a bank's existing internal network via a plug-in approach, without requiring a full overhaul of legacy infrastructure. The key feature is its ability to layer digital asset and distributed ledger-based services on top of existing core banking systems.

The joint venture will pursue global clearing and settlement business under the Edena Nexus brand and will hold global intellectual property rights and the platform framework related to the EID. The two companies are currently in working-level discussions with domestic and overseas financial institutions on adopting the next-generation settlement infrastructure.

Lee Wook, CEO of Edena Korea (left), and David Lim, co-CEO of Silverlake Axis Group, sign the agreement to establish the Singapore joint venture. [Edena Korea]

Silverlake Axis is a financial IT company that has developed core banking systems for 37 years. It employs about 2,400 financial technology professionals and supplies core banking systems to 137 banks across 80 countries, including Maybank, Bank Mandiri and UOB. The company holds more than 40 percent of the core banking systems market among major Asian commercial banks.

US blockchain technology firm Canton8 will also participate as a strategic partner. Canton8 will use technology related to the Canton Network — a distributed ledger network for financial institutions — to integrate the joint venture's settlement ledger with Silverlake Axis's core banking systems, with the goal of synchronizing transaction records across different banking networks in real time.

Edena Korea is also expanding its digital asset business cooperation with domestic financial firms. On June 25, it signed an MOU with SK Securities to advance digital asset financial services. The two companies plan to pursue the digitization of real assets, including fractional investment, and build a distribution infrastructure in line with the STO regime.

David Lim, co-CEO of Silverlake Axis Group, said the combination of Silverlake's 37-year financial computing engine and Edena's next-generation financial network design capabilities represents "an inevitable evolution of capital markets," adding that the joint venture would establish itself as a new financial infrastructure that enhances capital efficiency for global banks.

Lee Wook, CEO of Edena Korea, said the joint venture is focused on improving both settlement efficiency and system stability for traditional financial institutions, adding that the company aims to "lead the standard for the next-generation global financial settlement rail."

pooh@heraldcorp.com