SK Telecom announced a collaboration with Aptos Labs, Brevan Howard, and Microsoft to deliver to the global financial market Aptos Ascend, a suite of end-to-end institutional solutions including a permissioned network and Digital Asset Controls powered by SKT's Wallet-as-a-Service product and the scalable, secure Aptos blockchain. Aptos Ascend will also tap Brevan Howard's industry leadership and expertise to develop a seamless path for any major bank or financial institution to begin offering digital currency and asset management to their clients responsibly and at scale. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) will be Aptos Labs' preferred consulting partner, leveraging its global expertise in decentralized finance, digital assets, and AI to work with companies to implement the solutions.

In addition to bringing traditional finance giants, innovative fintech partners, money market platforms, and global investment firms into the Web3 fold, Aptos Ascend will enable organizations to: Unlock unparalleled transaction efficiency with the Aptos blockchain due to an sub-second latency?built for scale to achieve more than 30,000 transactions per second (TPS). Use the Move smart contract language and Digital Asset Controls, which provide secure asset management, privacy options, and formal verification of smart contracts, greatly reducing the risk of hacks. Collaborate with like-minded partners to build an extended ecosystem from the start to deliver scale from day one to encourage adoption.

Further explore financial services solutions with dedicated support from the Aptos Labs' engineering team to develop additional functions and features as required. The institution-ready, end-to-end financial suite will use Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI Service, along with Brevan Howard's international and market-specific investment expertise, and SKT's regulatory-compliant Web3 technology, to pair innovative trade finance offerings with a decentralized, scalable, data-rich, and accessible network. Adding BCG's strategic consulting expertise will enable Aptos Labs clients to implement the technology solutions seamlessly within their institutions.

While the Aptos Ascend solutions will continue to evolve, immediate value at a global scale will take the form of: Expanding decentralized finance to institutional capital. Unlocking the uncollateralized lending market for Web3. Releasing the liquidity of tokenized assets on a global scale.

Aptos Ascend is designed to help regulated institutions around the world meet their obligations to customers, regulators, and other stakeholders. Further, Aptos Ascend includes unparalleled customizable configurations to meet specific business and regulatory requirements, including: Access controls to help institutions meet regulatory requirements. Controls over the types of transactions allowed and which entities can control transaction types.

Tools to maintain account and transaction privacy. Embedded features for Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) checks and other regulatory considerations.