Citibank and IDB Collaborate to enable Cross-border Payments Using Blockchain

The research department of the American giant bank; Citibank in collaboration with Inter-American development Bank (IDB) has completed their project that will enable users to make cross-border payments using the Blockchain technology.

This was revealed in the release by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) today 8^th April, 2021. The project is a proof-of-concept worked on by the IDB and the Citi Innovation Labs to enable cross-border payments from the United States to the Caribbean and Latin America.

The LACChain Blockchain network was used for the project and CitiBank helped facilitate the payments and exchange to local Dominican currency processes according to the release.

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Marcos Allende, the IDB Blockchain specialist and Technical Leader of LACChain Blockchain further explains how the process works;

“For the proof of concept, the IDB deposited funds denominated in dollars in a Citi account, which were hold, tokenized, and transferred using digital wallets. After tokenized, these funds were converted to local currency -Dominican pesos- with the exchange rate established by Citi. Exchange rates, payment status, and fees were traceable and transparent at all times as the transaction could be checked in the LACChain Blockchain”.

Ruben Gutierrez, a staff from the treasury department of the IDB commented on the project and implied that the company’s participation in the project is integral to its mission of improving the lives of people within the region.

The project coordinator from the American bank; Citi, Piotr Marciszewski hinted that there is possibility of connecting the LACChain network with WordLink APIs so as to leverage on the Blockchain technology as stated in the release.

He also stated that the Bank has learnt a lot from the collaboration with the Inter-American development bank (IDB).