WSFS Bank is working with Intain, a blockchain firm based in Chennai, India, to help automate capital markets transactions.

The Wilmington, Del.-based bank, a subsidiary of WSFS Financial, said it’s using Intain’s blockchain-based tool to facilitate trustee reporting for asset-backed securities transactions. This collaboration allows automation of a reporting requirement that is usually done manually, freeing up staff time to focus on other duties and giving investors a rich source of up-to-date information about their holdings.

“In the asset-backed securities world, when you have a securitization, you have an indenture trustee whose responsibility is to take data from the servicer and other parties within the transaction and produce the trustee report, and that is done manually,” said Kristin Moore, senior vice president of WSFS Institutional Services. “This can happen more efficiently and significantly faster [with the blockchain-based solution]. With Intain, we can intake a daily feed from the servicers.”

Trustee reports are a crucial tool for investors to obtain updates on the health of their financial holdings; with the manual process, this is done monthly. But through smart contracts running on Intain’s system, the trustee reports can run daily. In effect, investors are granted a node on the blockchain platform to have daily access to loan-level detail, Moore explained.

In addition, the smart contracts automate the reporting on the transactions, including the calculation of payments and other information included in investor reports provided by indenture trustees. The automation facilitated by Intain’s platform also allows for more accurate, up-to-date reporting compared with manual methods.

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Moore noted that the tool has already been tested, and the bank is now in the process of onboarding its first clients to the platform. Asked why WSFS looked externally to add these functions, Moore said the bank considered building its own blockchain, but ultimately decided against it due to cost considerations.

WSFS Institutional Services has been exploring use cases for blockchain for three years, according to the bank. The bank recognized that transparency was a priority for its clients, and blockchain could deliver a solution. WSFS has been working with Intain for around seven months.

Siddhartha Siddhartha, Intain’s CEO, said in a statement that its platform is designed to help institutions save time and money.

“Together, we will help financial institutions lower their compliance and transactions costs,” he said. “When parties work off the same source data, you can then have true automation, and [a] distributed ledger provides an excellent means of achieving that.”

As of December 31, 2019, WSFS Financial had $12.3 billion in assets on its balance sheet and $20.7 billion in assets under management and administration. Its primary subsidiary, WSFS Bank, is the oldest and largest locally managed bank and trust company headquartered in Delaware and the Delaware Valley.