Observer Report
Islamabad
Renamed Digital Custodian Company (DCC) Limited starts operations as a licensed Trustee/Custodian company under the NBFC regime of SECP, after the acquisition of MCB Financial Services Company by a consortium of ISE RMC and InfoTech Pakistan Limited.
DCC will operate as a subsidiary of Pakistan’s largest REIT Management Company – ISE RMC, and one of the country’s prominent IT companies – InfoTech Pakistan. The acquisition underscores the ambitions of the acquirers to transform the Company into an acclaimed FinTech Company with a focus on independent asset-holding, digital asset registry, smart contract arrangements and digital marketplace solutions using distributed ledger technologies.
As of now, the Trustee & Custodianship business in Pakistan is completely dominated by one entity, while the erstwhile MCB Financial Services Company had a very negligible market share in the segment. The total business potential of the segment is slightly about PKR one billion, which mainly comes from the mutual fund industry of Pakistan. Besides the capital market, the third party asset-holding business has a huge potential, and the market is poised for technological disruption.
Furthermore, the pace of dematerialization and digitization of many conventional paper-oriented processes of the capital market & financial services through the offering of products such as; e-shares registry, demat insurance policies and smart loan/contract origination etc, is likely to gather momentum.
