IBM has signed a lucrative deal to provide a European banking consortium with blockchain-based financial trading.
Based on IBM Blockchain powered by Hyperledger Fabric, the new trade finance platform will aim to simplify and facilitate domestic and cross-border trade for small and medium enterprises in Europe, while helping to increase overall trade transaction transparency.
Big Blue was chosen by the Digital Trade Chain Consortium which consists of Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC, Natixis, Rabobank, Societe Generale and Unicredit.
The Digital Trade Chain solution will run in the IBM Cloud and is designed to connect the parties involved in a trade transaction, both online and via mobile devices. It is designed to simplify trade finance processes by addressing the challenge of managing, tracking and securing domestic and international trade transactions.
“To make the Digital Trade Chain network a reality and enable it to serve potentially thousands of the consortium’s banking clients, we turned to IBM in enterprise blockchain to help us quickly bring this highly scalable system into production,” said Rudi Peeters, CIO, KBC on behalf of the Consortium.
“Their blockchain and banking industry expertise will help us create a new platform for small and medium businesses in Europe that can enable them for faster, easier and cheaper trade transactions.”
The Consortium, via this deal with IBM, is seizing upon the opportunity found in the financing gap of small and medium enterprises (SME) – a traditionally underserved market segment. The platform anticipated to help open new revenue streams and initiate new trading relationships and foster trade growth. According to the World Bank, 50 percent of SMEs do not have access to formal credit.
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“To make the Digital Trade Chain network a reality and enable it to serve potentially thousands of the consortium’s banking clients, we turned to IBM in enterprise blockchain to help us quickly bring this highly scalable system into production,” said Rudi Peeters, CIO, KBC on behalf of the Consortium.
“Their blockchain and banking industry expertise will help us create a new platform for small and medium businesses in Europe that can enable them for faster, easier and cheaper trade transactions.”
The Digital Trade Chain is expected to go into production by end of 2017.
