ICICI Bank has become the first of its kind bank in India to adapt blockchain technology for completing a banking transaction.
Country’s largest private lender completed this remittance transaction in partnership with Emirates NBD, another lender from the Middle East.
Blockchain technology allows one to change the age old process of maintaining a ledger that can be accessed only by one party.
This technology is beneficial in the banking sector as it simplifies the process and drastically reduced time to up to a few minutes as compared to a few days. As the time is reduced the costs also come down significantly.
ICICI Bank has managed to authenticate remittance transaction messages as well as original international trade documents related to purchase order, invoice, shipping and insurance, among others, electronically on blockchain in real time.
Explaining about the relevance of blockchain technology, Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO, ICICI Bank said, “I envision that the emerging technology of blockchain will play a significant role in banking in the coming years by making complex bilateral and multi-lateral banking transactions seamless, quick and more secure.”
Kochhar from ICICI Bank further added that going forward the bank will also look at working on expanding the blockchain ecosystem and creating common working standards which can help in the commercial adoption of this initiative.
