Financial institutions are ramping up their efforts to take advantage of the opportunities of blockchain, with French bank BNP Paribas recently becoming one of the latest institutions to go public with its work in the sector.

The bank's securities services arm is piloting a series of projects applying bitcoin's underlying infrastructure to custody. The bank had first flagged up its interest in blockchain November, through an article in its magazine Quintessence. It reiterated its views earlier this month.