Over 250 Corporates Join ICICI Bank's Blockchain Platform

ICICI Bank said on Tuesday that it has successfully on-boarded over 250 corporates on its blockchain platform that is designed for domestic as well as international trade finance transactions.

The leading private bank said that the Indian corporates who had joined their custom-made blockchain platform to make their financial transactions in domestic and international trade included those from the "S&P BSE 100 Index".

"This initiative marks another milestone in the bank's pioneering role to promote blockchain in the banking industry in the country," said the bank in a statement.

It further said that in August 2016, ICICI Bank became the first bank in the country who conducted pilot transactions in international trade finance and remittance in partnership with Emirates NBD.

It called the bank's blockchain application "a more time and cost efficient and secure way of undertaking domestic and international trade transactions."

According to ICICI Bank, seven Indian corporates have performed trade finance transactions of various types that include: domestic payments to a vendor from a different city, cross-border salary remittance to employees of a group company and payments for raw materials to a domestic channel partner.

The statement said, "It enables all the parties - buyers and sellers - across domestic and international locations, all branches and locations of ICICI Bank in the country and overseas, to view the data in real time....It also allows them to track documentation and authenticate ownership of assets digitally and execute a trade finance transaction through a series of encrypted and secure digital contracts."