Standard Bank says that its international settlements blockchain hosted on hyperledger fabric is set to go live in the first half of 2019.<\/p>\n
The platform aims to increase the speed and transparency of international payments and trades by providing an instantly-available record of documents and settlements stored in the cloud.<\/p>\n
Conducting offshore payments in South Africa currently requires a number of steps to be completed, which can drastically slow the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of client trades fail in the first mile of payment. That is, at the very beginning,\u201d said Standard Bank head of foreign exchange Richard de Roos.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could actually offer clients a fully integrated end-to-end blockchain solution that would dramatically reduce the incidence of trade failure while also increasing regulatory transparency and improving the visibility of liquidity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The blockchain developed by Standard Bank is a limited private permission-based platform which can be accessed through a web interface, ultimately becoming available at all of the bank\u2019s online channels.<\/p>\n
Initially, this private permission-based network will only include Standard Bank and Stanbic Bank partner banks, clients, and third parties directly involved in trades.<\/p>\n
It is important to note that this will be a private blockchain by Standard Bank, and will only be interacted with by approved partners.<\/p>\n