Thai banks deploy blockchain transactions to boost cross-border trade
Top banks in Thailand have successfully deployed cross-border blockchain transactions to boost the efficiency of cross-border trade, while Bank of Ayudhya (Krungsri) expects their cross-border blockchain solution, the Krungsri Blockchain Interledger, to be officially implemented by the end of this year.
“The traditional process of cross-border trade often faces delays due to the checking of documents and verification systems that are still reliant on paperwork,” Thakorn Piyapan, head of Krungsri Consumer Group and the Digital Banking and Innovation Division, said.
With the new blockchain solution, cross-border trade can become more efficient as the process will be significantly shortened, he added.
He stated that currently we are in the central bank’s sandbox and have successfully deployed a blockchain transaction between IRPC and their partner in Laos. Krungsri, in cooperation with Mitsubishi Corporation, has been able to complete a blockchain transaction with Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore.
Thakorn said each transaction tested was worth more than Bt1 million. He said that with this blockchain transaction process, the bank should exit the Bank of Thailand’s sandbox and be ready for cross-border transactions by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Standard Chartered Bank (Thailand) announced on Wednesday that it has successfully executed a pilot transaction for PTT Group, PTT International Trading and IRPC.
This marks the first cross-border letter of credit (LC) issued over the Voltron blockchain platform in the oil industry.
Voltron is a blockchain-based open-industry platform created to exchange, digitise and approve the LC forms. The LC is a form of short-term finance document that is traditionally paper-intensive and requires up to five days for the delivery of these documents.
With the new blockchain transaction, Standard Chartered was able to digitise and simplify the end-to-end exchange of the LC form between all parties in the transaction on the Voltron platform.
This resulted in a significant reduction of processing time from five days to less than 12 hours, in addition to achieving greater transparency and cost efficiencies across the supply chain, according to Plakorn Wanglee, president and CEO of Standard Chartered Bank (Thailand).
