At the start of September the Bitcoin markets have been on a tear and prices continue to feed off positive sentiment in the market. A few of the stories catching the attention of bitcoin investors have to do with major commercial banks and their various plans to implement blockchain technology. As adoption affects the market sentiment, this news has the potential to catapult prices much higher. Let’s take a closer at how these banks plan to integrate blockchain technology.
BNY Mellon is backing up transactions using Blockchain
BNY Mellon has come up with a test system that relies on blockchain technology to create backups of transactions. While the existing system records only brokerage transactions, work is under progress on further applications. The new system operates alongside BNY’s existing transaction records system. It aims to provide an operational buffer in the event that the first layer of transaction records becomes unavailable. Developed as part of the bank’s broader blockchain efforts, the resiliency solution is dubbed as ‘BDS 360’. Their internal projects collaborated with financial institutions as part of the R3 distributed ledger consortium, announcing the “settlement coin” project. BNY CIO Suresh Kumar framed the effort as a way for the bank to test “the strengths and weaknesses” of the technology. He said
“Assume your primary system is down. Do you have the information that you need so that you are able to conduct business, have an account for transactions that you know of, so that you can settle transactions? So that’s what we tried to do.”
BNP Paribas opens Blockchain Lab
BNP Paribas has opened a new FinTech laboratory at its New York headquarters. This lab would primarily focus on building blockchain solutions to employee problems. This was announced at a blockchain hackathon held by the French multi-national bank. Eventually, the lab will house the work of six task forces, which will also work on AI and big data. BNP’s chief operating officer of commercial investment banking, Bruno d-Illiers, stated that the lab is open to all company employees and not just cryptographers and leadership. Needless to say, the employees in France were happy about this
Barclays completes finance transaction through Blockchain
Barclays reported that two partners, Ornua and Seychelles Trading, were able to successfully transfer trade documentation via blockchain platform. This platform was created by Barclay’s accelerator program graduate, ‘Wave’. The Israel-based startup was using custom technology on top of a blockchain to facilitate the transfer of trade documents.
In statements, Barclays head of trade Baihas Baghdadi said that this is a crucial step for trade settlements. The project confirms that adding multiple parties to a distributed ledger system can remove one of the biggest “headaches” associated with global trade, the movement of the paper documents that track and authenticate the transactions.
Hong Kong’s Central Bank to Test Blockchain:
Hong Kong’s de-facto central bank intends to launch an innovation hub that will test blockchain and distributed ledger solutions.The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) revealed yesterday it has begun work on the initiative with the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI). This is an initiative founded by the government to enhance its competitiveness in technology. Additional activities that are expected to take place at the innovation hub include the testing of solutions; discussions between regulators, incumbents and startups; and the testing of solutions that could be adopted by the HKMA.