The International Securities Lending Association (ISLA) has selected global law firm Ashurst to provide preliminary analysis on the Global Master Securities Lending Agreement (GMSLA) within the digital asset landscape.
The analysis will look at key provisional changes to title transfer and security interest over collateral (pledge) frameworks of the GMSLA that may need to be revised to cater for digital assets including tokenised digital assets, native digital assets and forms of digital cash.
The ISLA Legal Steering Group and ISLA Digital Asset Working Group will conduct detailed legal analysis of the GMSLA frameworks in association with ISLA members and a white paper is likely to be published detailing the results of this analysis.
David Shone, director of market infrastructure and technology at ISLA, says: “Digital assets and tokenisation are areas that are increasingly important to our members; offering new business opportunities, new solutions to locked-up liquidity issues, and new methods of risk reduction.
“The appointment of Ashurst to help chart our way through this landscape ensures that the GMSLA agreements published by ISLA and used for securities lending activity globally, are able to support our membership’s ability to leverage these new opportunities. This is a key component in ISLA’s digital strategy and supports our ongoing mandate to establish standards for the securities finance industry.”
Etay Katz, finance regulatory partner at Ashurst, adds: “This is a momentous junction of change for the industry, and our appointment further solidifies Ashurst’s reputation and standing as the global law firm of choice advising on digital assets transformation in global financial markets.”
