Indian stock exchange NSE to trial blockchain for e-voting

National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), in collaboration with Elemential Labs, is going to test blockchain technology for e-voting for listed companies.

NSE is a leading stock exchange of India with a market capitalization of $2.27 trillion as of April 2018. It is seeking to tap into blockchain potential to provide a transparent and low-risk e-voting solution.

Founded in 2015, Elemential Labs is a Mumbai-based blockchain startup that aims to make enterprise adoption a smoother experience for both the developer and the enterprise.

The pilot will involve setting up a blockchain that will connect the regulator with the company and the RTA during the voting process. Voting rights will be tokenized, making them easy to transfer and proxy. The test will be evaluated on the auditability of the actions on the chain as well as the ease of conducting the process using blockchain.

“The immutable nature of blockchain will ensure that every action taken by a network participant is transparent to the regulator. Additionally, the smart contract framework enables synchronisation of the vote count process between the company and the regulator in real time. These features will take us closer to an environment of improved corporate governance and compliance,” Sankarson Banerjee, CTO-Projects, NSE said.

According to the official release, the blockchain solution will be built using the Elemential platform on the Hyperledger framework. The SI partner is NSE IT, which is in charge of building and managing the front-end application.

“Blockchain enables a real-time, immutable trail of all activities for the regulator. This brings us a step closer to highly transparent and clear corporate governance, an operating standard that most companies aspire to,” Raunaq Vaisoha, CEO Elemential Lab said.