High Street Indian Banks Are Now Using Blockchain For Efficiency

By Dmitriy

BTC Wires: A number of big names in the Indian banking circuit are already using blockchain. High-street lenders that are looking to compete with major fintech companies are now buying into the new technology.

Kotak Mahindra Bank recently collaborated with Ripple to provide superfast cross-border remunerations. As of right now, such transactions require anything between 12 hours to 3 days, depending on the service used. Chief Digital Officer of the bank Deepak Sharma anticipates that this move will also reduce expenses by 10-40%. Ripple has also partnered with Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, and many more such names overseas as well. Ripple, however, doesn’t make use of digital currencies here since the RBI has banned it.

Blockchain company Elemential has also partnered with the Central KYC registry in order to keep KYC info on blockchains.

3 years back, the Securities Exchange Board of India announced that all KYC data collection by the multiple KYC Registration bodies in the country must be collected in the C-KYC registry. Raunaq Vaisoha, CEO of Elemential, maintained that having such a single registry meant that only a few requests could be entertained at a time, and the cost of backups would also be huge. “Blockchain is taking off because it dramatically reduces the cost of coordination,” he says.

Chief Digital Technology Officer of ICICI Bank B. Madhivanan says that blockchain could have a huge potential in the trading sector. The main issue is the verification of documents like letters of credit. The Economic Times reports:

“By using blockchain, the process not only goes digital, payments also have a guarantee of not getting stuck. Unlike current digital payment methods like e-wallets, where a wrong payment can take days to get reversed, blockchain eliminates the intermediary. Money either goes straight to the receiver, or stays in the sender’s account.”

Infosys, in collaboration with a number of banks including ICICI, is developing a trade network based in blockchain called Trade Connect. The aim of this platform is to boost such existing networks like SWIFT. “Eventually, if all stakeholders agree, it can replace SWIFT,” says Vice President of Infosys Finacle, Rajashekara V. Maiya.