Banks including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. have successfully tested the record-keeping technology behind bitcoin on credit-default swaps, a move that could help it gain a foothold in mainstream finance.

The swaps are essentially insurance contracts that pay off if a bond goes bad, and the process of keeping track of the over-the-counter products can be a burden. Banks match buyers and sellers, transmit the trades via a service run by data provider Markit Ltd. and send a record to Wall Street’s central bookkeeper, Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.

The new test showed that a portion of that record-keeping task could be accomplished using “blockchain,” a common ledger that each party can view in much the same way that multiple users can work on shared computer documents.

DTCC will now discuss whether the results are strong enough to warrant using the technology for live trades or across a broader swath of credit-default swaps, a market with trillions of dollars in outstanding contracts.

“The ink is still drying on the results, but they are positive,” said Chris Childs, chief executive of the DTCC unit that oversees over-the-counter derivatives.