HSBC a London-based banking giant seeks partnership in South Korea to deploy Blockchain Platform Voltron in South Korea reports Korean Times.
At a recent conference held in Seoul yesterday 12th March, 2019. Joshua Kroeker, HSBC‘s innovation director, said; the collaboration will enable South Korean Banks to process transactions with ease and in a short time frame. Time and Transparency will help in interbank transactions and equally cover cash flows and proper working capital management, notes John Kroeker.
“I am here this week to reach out to Korean banks to collaborate on this blockchain platform for letters of credit.”
He added.
Korea Times noted that filing and validating trading papers takes five to ten days. HSBC partnership with Korean Banks will help to speed up the processing of these papers within a very short time frame of up to 24hrs as this can previously last up to 30 days. Using decentralised ledger system the process will equally reduce cost, providing more time for local banks.
Voltron has partnerships with seven financial companies through HSBC. They are Bangkok Bank, BNP Paribas, CTBC Holding, ING, NatWest, SEB and Standard Chartered. All running a “Permissioned” based Blockchain Technology.
Voltron is a blockchain based platform that enables companies to process and share trading invoices using Blockchain. Initially, it was set up to help resolve issues on the the long processing of paper-based letters of credit exchanged between banks, including importers and exporters. Voltron platform was launched in October 2018 by blockchain consortium R3 and eight banks — including HSBC, ING and Standard Chartered. HSBC notes that Voltron won’t be owned by HSBC but will be managed by cooperatively. Currently at its infant stage, Voltron intends to launch commercially in the nearest future.
In February, HSBC announced that its blockchain-powered platform FX Everywhere had reduced foreign exchange trade settlement by 25 percent. The bank processes between 3,500 and 5,000 trades a day on its “FX Everywhere” system, settling trades worth $350 billion. HSBC made it clear that the blockchain-based settlements platform covers a small proportion of the total.
The recent details of the progress record of the HSBC project suggest that the potential of blockchain to significantly reduce the cost transactions in the financial services industry – is being realized. HSBC processes payments using a “shared permissioned ledger” type of Blockchain Technology, which allows approved multiple parties to share invoices and receipts.
