Banks Across 27 Countries in 6 Continents Hop on R3 Blockchain Pilot

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Enterprise blockchain software firm R3 and over 50 banks and corporates successfully tested sending transaction confirmations across 27 countries spanning six continents. The historic feat was made possible through the platform Voltron which is built on R3’s Corda blockchain.

The participating banks sent letters guaranteeing that a buyer’s payment to a seller would be received on time.

The global trial included several high-profile banks including Standard Chartered Bank, Alfa Bank, CIB, CommerzBank, Commercial Bank of Qatar, National Bank of Egypt, RBI, Société Générale and The Saudi British Bank.

Voltron is designed to reduce the time it takes to carry out a letter of credit confirmation, a process that typically takes anywhere from 5 to 10 days.

Ninety six percent of trial participants believe that the blockchain-based platform will increase the speed of sending the letters of credit to under 24 hours, and that it will also reduce costs.

According to R3’s announcement,

“Traditional trade finance processes are largely paper-based, time-consuming and prone to risk. According to a survey of trial participants, 86% of firms believe such inefficiencies are increasingly becoming ‘intolerable’ for both corporates and banks. As a result, 61% said they are likely to move trade flows to ‘open account’, a far more risky option for exporters.”

“96% of participants in the trial said Voltron will accelerate their Letters of Credit process, improve efficiencies and reduce cost.”

Head of CIB Innovations at Alfa Bank, Denis Dodon, says the platform makes it easier to share information and improve workflows.

“Everything is done in the same interface, which is connected to all the workflow participants. Information is shared instantly, which will significantly expedite the transaction, optimizing working with documents, which could be rectified in an instant, should there be any discrepancies identified. Corda based DLT environment creates values to every participant. It really works in a business logic named by R3 as ‘I see what you see.’”