Banking giants HSBC and ING on Monday said they had carried out a landmark blockchain transaction aimed at speeding up payment processes and making them more secure.

The transaction, using the cutting-edge blockchain technology driving virtual currencies like bitcoin, involved a bulk shipment of soybeans from Argentina on behalf of US agriculture group Cargill, the pair said in a statement.

"HSBC and ING Bank have successfully executed a... finance transaction for international food and agriculture conglomerate Cargill using R3's Corda scalable blockchain platform," the statement said.

"The transaction demonstrates that blockchain as a solution to trade digitisation, is commercially and operationally viable.

"Conventional exchanges for paper-based documentation related to letters of credit usually take between 5-10 days. This exchange was done in 24 hours," it added.

Going forward, blockchain is seen as being able to support also trading of other assets.

London-headquartered HSBC and Dutch lender ING meanwhile described the novel letter of credit transaction as "an end-to-end trade between a buyer and a seller and their respective banking partners, completed on a single shared application rather than multiple systems".

While banks are seen as reducing costs by using the latest blockchain technology, consumers may also benefit from quicker and cheaper services.

HSBC's head of growth and innovation, Vivek Ramachandran, noted that thanks to the development, "trade finance transactions have been made simpler, faster, more transparent and more secure".

David E. Rutter, CEO of blockchain technology group R3, explained that the platform "Corda enables the development of applications... that bring all parties together on a single, shared infrastructure while ensuring the highest levels of privacy and security".

bcp/rfj/jh

ING GROEP

HSBC

Related Links
Global Trade News

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The Space Media Network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceMediaNetwork Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceMediaNetwork Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

China moves to rope in its tech 'unicorns'
Shanghai (AFP) May 9, 2018
Having lost the likes of Alibaba and Baidu to Wall Street, China is hatching a plan to woo them back and make sure it keeps a new generation of technology titans closer to home as it battles the US for supremacy in the sector. New share offerings worth tens of billions of dollars are in the pipeline for 2018, setting it up as a blockbuster year with a number of so-called "unicorns" - tech start-ups valued at least $1 billion - lining up to cash in. China dominates the line-up of the world's bi ... read more