DAML Development Services: Everything You Need to Know

Bank transfers, healthcare and insurance claims, and stock purchases usually need a couple of days for processing. Haven’t you ever thought of why that happens if, for example, sending an email takes seconds? The reason for the delays is that multiple organizations involved in a transaction each maintain their own separate records, creating data silos. Ensuring consistency across these silos is complicated and slow. Besides, arising discrepancies further slow down the process, as reconciliation is costly, time-consuming, and often requires substantial intervention to resolve conflicting views of the transaction. Such discrepancies might be anything from variations in data models, error handling, process implementation, or system faults.

Digital asset modeling language (DAML) is an open-source language for creating distributed applications. It is compatible with most of the blockchain platforms. PixelPlex developers have extensive experience in blockchain development, dealing with DAML and other blockchain programming languages such as Solidity, Vyper, etc. Together, we have compiled this overview of the main DAML features, pros and cons, and the domains where businesses may benefit from it.

What is DAML?

Let’s consider an example. You need to transfer $100 from your bank account to your friend’s account in a different bank. In traditional systems, each bank tracks its cash independently in private databases, handling validation, security, and regulation separately. Coordinating between banks is complex, as they must manage counterparty risk, i.e., the chance that the other party might fail to fulfill their part. Therefore, your bank sends a message to your friend’s bank through networks like SWIFT or SEPA. They agree on a settlement plan, often involving intermediaries and fees, and the money moves through several steps of debiting and crediting. To ensure atomicity, banks operate on business days, effectively “pausing time” outside business hours to complete settlements.

And now let’s imagine a system that allows multiple parties to transact instantly as if they were parts of a single database. At the same time, each party retains control and privacy over its data. That’s what DAML offers. It is a platform and framework for building real-time, multi-party DeFi development solutions that deliver seamless user experiences without requiring counterparty risk or costly reconciliation.

Advantages of DAML development

DAML multi-party applications enable participants to share data, as well as the rules and processes that manage that data, without a risk of losing control over the data. No single party, including the provider of the application, can unilaterally change or bypass the established rules that all parties have agreed upon. Therefore, multi-party dApp development with DAML offer the following benefits:

Privacy

Due to DAML functionality, each party sees only the data that it is entitled to view or to modify. Portions of the shared data are secure, and sensitive information remains under the ownership and responsibility of the individuals. The system prevents any unauthorized access or manipulation from other participants or malicious actors within the network. Additionally, DAML’s architecture supports the layering of new solutions on top of existing agreements, which allows for privacy and financial security across integrated applications.

Speed

One of the core strengths of DAML is its ability to streamline business processes. It does not require isolated, disconnected, or manual processes, which leads to zero additional reconciliation. As a result, real-time operations reduce friction and operational overhead, save time, and minimize the costs and risks typically involved in joint business activities.

Compatibility

DAML uses distributed ledger technologies, ensuring that all parties have access to a consistent and tamper-proof record of shared data and business logic. Organizations treat the DAML-based infrastructure as the golden source of truth. The language also supports the composability of multiple multi-party apps.

Clear business logic

The DAML logic manages the rules and workflows that govern data interactions. Developers define and codify all agreements, transactions, and relationships into executable schemas. This clarity ensures transparency. The platform provides a unified and accurate view of all relevant data, supporting efficient and reliable processes across all participants.

Open source

DAML is an open-source platform. The community allows for relevant contributions and support from peer developers. It encourages innovation and allows organizations to benefit from shared expertise.

Validation

DAML executes a cryptographic audit trail and consensus between parties, ensuring no one party can unilaterally alter the system’s state. This immutable ledger underpins trust among parties and guarantees the integrity of all business processes managed through the platform.

Challenges and limitations

Partnering with a company that provides DAML development services allows any company to cope with possible issues.

Long-term learning curve

Programming skills are not enough for dealing with DAML. Some familiarity with contract law and logical thinking is also important. Developers should understand the ledger’s state through the dynamic elements of the ledger and exercise events that represent actions taken on contracts. However, those are usually hidden from users. User interfaces typically show only active contracts, while exercise events, which link ledger states, remain “missing,” making full analysis and visualization challenging without using specialized APIs.

Limited decentralization

DAML is good for private blockchain development projects, permissioned environments with known participants. The framework is less suitable for fully public blockchains, which require open, decentralized consensus mechanisms and transparency.

Complex human readability

Non-technical stakeholders are unlikely to easily understand smart contract code. Therefore, additional documentation is essential. There is no obvious link between the smart contract code and the legal prose describing the rights and obligations. Although a DAML contract template might include an “agreement” field with a text template representing the contract’s meaning, nothing guarantees this text accurately reflects the contract code. Understanding this requires familiarity with the contract template code itself.

Lack of ecosystem maturity

More established platforms like those with Ethereum development or Haskell-based ecosystems have larger communities and more available third-party tools. This can limit resources, support, and integrations for developers and businesses adopting DAML.

Use cases

Here are some of the popular ways DAML development upgrades the workflow in various domains:

Financial services

Statista predicts that cash, deposits, bonds, loans, and ETFs will experience tokenization by 2030. McKinsey mentions $2 trillion as the estimated value of the total tokenized market capitalization by 2030. It means financial institutions will look for technological possibilities to create and manage digital representations of various assets and to shorten transaction times, save operational costs, and enhance transparency. The DAML language is able to offer all the mentioned benefits for the financial sector.

Real-world example: Goldman Sachs

The investment bank has implemented an end-to-end digital asset platform built on DAML to support tokenization across multiple asset classes. This infrastructure allows Goldman Sachs to fully model the cash flows, events, rights, and obligations of all participants involved in a tokenized asset ecosystem. Complex financial products of the bank are safe due to DAML’s common data models, robust authorization, and composable APIs.

Supply chain and logistics

Disconnected systems, errors in documents, and slow processes might add complexity to the cooperation of multiple participants in the supply chain. DAML’s automated multi-party transactions with imposed rights, obligations, and permissions allow companies to transparently integrate data across the entire supply chain. With DAML, companies trace ownership and protect against counterfeit goods. The data is available to all stakeholders from multiple locations.

Real-world example: DHL

DHL addressed a DAML development company to apply blockchain technology and create digital ledgers of shipments and monitor transactions. It improves transparency and efficiency across the operations. The functionality of DAML allows for developing privacy-sensitive workflows, which is ideal for secure data coordination.

Healthcare

In healthcare software development, multiple organizations share sensitive data and comply with strict regulations. Applications built with DAML assist in effective claims management, patient data sharing, and supplier onboarding. Healthcare providers respond faster to demand changes and regulatory requirements. It also results in reduced errors and enhanced patient privacy.

Real-world example: Change Healthcare

It is a major healthcare technology company that has explored DAML-powered solutions for improved claims management. By leveraging DAML, Change Healthcare aims to automate multi-party workflows, enforce privacy, and ensure compliance with healthcare regulations. This approach allows healthcare providers and payers to share sensitive data only with authorized parties, streamlining claims processing and reducing administrative overhead.

Insurance

DAML allows insurers to build applications that clearly define rights, obligations, and workflows in code. All parties receive a shared, accurate view of policies and claims, which reduces manual work, accelerates settlements, and lowers operational costs. The sensitive customer data is protected, and automation helps prevent fraud and speeds up claims handling. As a result, customer experience improves, bringing businesses more profit.

Real-world example: BNP Paribas

A leading global bank and insurance provider has used the expertise of a DAML development company to digitize and automate insurance contracts. By encoding complex policy terms, rights, and obligations directly into DAML smart contracts, BNP Paribas ensures all parties have a synchronized and accurate view of insurance agreements.

Government and public sector

Governments need coordination among departments, agencies, and external partners, often with strict regulatory and privacy demands. DAML supports building apps that codify rules, track transactions, and enforce data sovereignty. This enables faster, more efficient public services such as licensing, benefits distribution, and regulatory compliance. By providing an immutable audit trail and real-time data sharing with controlled access, DAML helps reduce fraud, improve accountability, and streamline complex administrative workflows.

Real-world example: the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)

The ASX organization replaced its legacy clearing and settlement system with a DAML-based platform. This new system automates multi-party workflows, provides real-time data sharing with strict access controls, and delivers an immutable audit trail. The ASX’s adoption of DAML demonstrates how government-related entities can streamline regulatory compliance and reduce operational risk using multi-party applications.

DAML development best practices

Keep testing

Continuous testing is essential to ensure the correctness, security, and reliability of DAML contracts. Use the DAML SDK’s built-in testing tools and simulation environments to verify contract logic before deployment. Testing and thorough QA help catch logical errors early, reduces bugs, and improves confidence in multi-party workflows. Embrace functional programming principles to write safe and predictable code, and consider edge cases such as contention and concurrency in distributed ledgers.

Know your tools

Familiarize yourself with the full DAML development ecosystem, including the DAML SDK, Canton protocol APIs, and integration libraries. Understanding how to leverage these tools effectively will simplify multi-party application development, schema definition, and off-ledger integration. Also, be aware of the asynchronous nature of distributed systems and design your application to handle contention gracefully by techniques like batching and partitioning contracts to improve throughput and reduce latency.

Make the app a single source of truth

Each party, such as a bank, should treat the multi-party infrastructure (built with DAML) as the authoritative source for relevant data and integrate it fully with their internal systems. Otherwise, reconciliation issues may simply shift from one organization to another.

Utilize composability

Build advanced systems by composing new solutions on top of existing multi-party agreements. For example, a healthcare claims application should leverage a payment solution, preserving the privacy and financial guarantees of each system. Without composability, new silos may form, requiring further reconciliation.

To sum up

The engineers and blockchain specialists from PixelPlex have extensive expertise in creating smart contracts. The DAML platform offers opportunities for businesses in different domains. Our team evaluates the requirements of the clients, creates a roadmap, and tackles the development process with all required iterations. If you are considering DAML-powered apps and need expert advice, contact us – we’ll fully support your endeavor.