Hong Kong Trade Finance To Fight Fraud With Blockchain-Based Platform
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has partnered with Chinese Ping An to release a blockchain-based trade finance platform. The joint effort is expected to speed-up the process and prevent fraud.
CCN first reported the Hong Kong’s de facto central bank’s initiative back on March 30. At the time, the bank unveiled a proof-of-concept (PoC) blockchain platform built for trade finance.
The enterprise initially included participants such as Bank of China (Hong Kong), Deloitte, HSBC, the Bank of East Asia, Hang Seng Bank, and Standard Chartered (Hong Kong). The Financial Times now reports there are a total of at least 21 banks involved in the enterprise, and each of them will share ownership in the platform.
Although trials for the platform began in December and the announcement happened in late March, only now is the HKMA ready to finally launch it, which will occur next month. Ping Ang Group’s financial technology company, OneConnect, was responsible for designing the platform, which will mark the first governmental system of the sort.
Once in place, the platform is expected to reduce the amount of time needed to perform daily supply-chain finance and trade finance transactions — some will now be processed in 24 hours, as opposed to the traditional 10 business days.
Due to the distributed ledger technology, the system will automatically check the validity of all transactions, as well as all parties involved — the amount of paperwork required will drastically decrease.
Culled from CCN