The Silicon Review ^Asia

Many of the emerging companies are focusing on creating efficient new ways to conduct global money transfer and increase their income. This can be the driving factor for IBM’s new partnership with Stellar, a non-profit creating an open source blockchain network for financial services and KlickEx, a cross-border payments system delivering financial infrastructure for emerging markets, to create a more efficient way to make international payments. Jesse Lund, vice president of IBM’s global blockchain market development predicts a drastic shift in the construct of payments infrastructure in the next five years.

IBM is unveiling the blockchain network for the cross-border payments that can enable the merchants and consumers to send money to the other countries. The technology aims at reducing the settlement time from days to seconds. This is the first time the blockchain technology is being used and all these are extensions of the IBM's mission to collaborate with financial institutions to develop a blockchain ecosystem. With this system each of the payments made are immutable once recorded. Both IBM and Stellar are part of a project called Hyperledger Fabric, which is building open source blockchain tools to support payment infrastructures. The settlement instructions are provided through the smart contracts on Hyperledger Fabric. IBM has managed to include an initial group of leading banking institutions to advice on how to bring the network into new jurisdictions. National Australia Bank, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) Philippines, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, TD Bank and Wizdraw (HK) of WorldCom Finance are the firms that support IBM in its better payment infrastructure management.