The Commercial Bank, Qatar’s first private bank, in collaboration with its subsidiary and associates and Infosys Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys, have successfully completed a pilot on the cloud-based blockchain network in order to process international remittances.

According to the announcement, the cloud-based blockchain network of Commercial Bank Group built independent of the underlying core banking systems at each of the banks. The Commercial Bank has formed a grid along with its subsidiary Alternatifbank in Turkey and its associates National Bank of Oman and United Arab Bank in the UAE for routing cross border business transactions across the India-GCC corridor.

“This pilot has demonstrated the immense potential of blockchain to provide the best customer experience for our clients and given us a glimpse of what more we could do on this powerful platform. We are delighted with the success of this pilot across the Commercial Bank Group and want to expand our cluster to form closed group networks for trade and cash transactions with more banks in South Asia, Egypt, Philippines, UAE and other countries with higher transaction volumes,” Joseph Abraham, Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Bank, stated.

The blockchain network was built on an asset-agnostic cloud-based ledger. With this ledger, banks can automate inter-organizational processes by curbing the risk of fraud and enabling greater transparency. This is a permissioned network that eliminates the need for intermediaries, enabling the banks to settle customer payment requests on a real-time basis.

According to the Commercial Bank, it will focus on trade finance transactions, specifically the transmission of secure documents and smart contracts, during the next phase of this pilot blockchain project.

“The adoption of a cloud-based blockchain network by the Commercial Bank Group is a pioneering step, where they will automate the remittances and trade finance processes to deliver significant cost savings and enhanced customer experience. We are looking forward to expand on the current use cases and develop this pilot as a model for other progressive banking groups,” Sanat Rao, Chief Business Officer and Global Head, Infosys Finacle, said.

The Infosys Finacle powered blockchain network will enable all trade finance transaction to be paperless by further simplifying the process of digital exchange of purchase orders and invoices. The solution will offer enhanced transactional security and higher accuracy at lower price.