PayCommerce, a U.S.-based open cross-border payments network, has announced the completion of its real-time, cross-border payment, clearing and settlement testing, which marks the first phase of its multi-country global roll out strategy.

The company said that the Phase 1 was successfully conducted last week which included multiple test payments between the U.S. and India. It used PayCommerce’s Federated Ledger, a blockchain-based technology foundation, integrated into the PayCommerce Network Platform, for delivering instant payments.

The PayCommerce Network is a banking consortium which provides access to 95+ banks in 75 countries. The network leverages its proprietary Federated Ledger to enable real-time, instant payments, clearing and settlement integration for its banking consortium.

The Federated Ledger is a hybrid, integrating both distributed and centralized ledgers which enable faster payments across networks via its messaging platform. By leveraging the foundation of blockchain, PayCommerce ensures it is secure, transparent and accommodates business rules in a heterogeneous network environment.

PayCommerce’s global customer base benefits from significantly lower transaction costs, access to instant real-time payments, acceptance and FX rates and increased efficiency and transparency, as well as management of risk and regional compliance, all on a single platform.

“PayCommerce has created a new category in the cross-border payments space with its consortium model of banks and corporates, focusing on the banking industry (vs. just banks) and its distributed ledger-inspired technology delivering instant payments. It is a unique model in the industry”, Gareth Lodge, Senior Celent Analyst, said.

PayCommerce said that it aims the production and commercialization of this offering to its network members by the end of Q2. It is focusing on the rapid expansion of the PayCommerce Network, which includes 95+ banks in 75 countries. This, in turn, will increase its global market share by region and accelerate the expansion of its proven, correspondent-banking consortium and network.

With the network expansion, PayCommerce is targeting introducing instant payments in Mexico, GCC region and the UK in 2017; followed by Singapore, Canada and Philippines in 2018, according to the official release.

“The facilitation of instant payments into India heralds a new era in the democratization of cross-border payments. For the first time, payees will receive remittances in real-time, eliminating costly clearing and settlement procedures and reducing risk in payment acceptance,” says Max Narro, CEO of PayCommerce. “We’re excited for the roll-out of real-time payments cross-border account-to-account in other markets in 2017 as we lead the world forward in instant payments space.”

PayCommerce enterprise customers include seven of the top global banks, 11 of the top 50 U.S. banks, 14 Global Fortune 500 firms and eight U.S. Fortune 500 companies. Additionally, the PayCommerce platform has processed over US$400 billion, consisting of ~200 million transactions in the last 12 months.