IBM (NYSE: IBM) recently announced a new blockchain banking solution designed to speed global transactions and decrease the cost of universal cross-border payments. The collaboration is intended for banks to both clear and settle payment transactions on a single network in near real time. Usually these transactions take days or weeks to complete.
Typically, international payments can be “costly, laborious and error-prone.” As a result “with the guidance of some of the world’s leading financial institutions, IBM is working to explore new ways to make payment networks more efficient and transparent so that banking can happen in real-time, even in the most remote parts of the world,” said Bridget van Kralingen, Senior Vice President of IBM Industry Platforms.
The open source solution combines IBM Blockchain Platform with Hyperledger Fabric which was collaboratively created by Stellar.org, a non-profit organization and associate member of Hyperledger, and KlickEx Group, a regional financial services company from the Pacific region. Stellar is “an open-source blockchain network that is purpose-built for the issuance and exchange of digital assets.”
The collaboration has already started in the South Pacific nations with the Advanced Pacific Financial Infrastructure for Inclusion (APFII) members, a public-private partnership initially funded by the United Nations and SWIFT. Eventually, it will be universally implemented by IBM and its banking partners to assist future international transactions and inclusion of developing countries in financial participation.
