‘Big Four’ accounting firm Deloitte has integrated with the Stellar network to build a revolutionary cross-border payments application – the Deloitte Digital Bank.

Launched at the Consensus conference in New York earlier in May, the Deloitte Digital Bank is now available to power instant payments across borders. It resolves all transactions in around 5 seconds and has been developed to serve two customer segments – consumers and businesses:

• Consumers use the Digital Bank mobile application (available on iOS). With the mobile app, users create an account by scanning their driver’s license and can make instant peer-to-peer payments.
   
• Businesses access the Digital Bank through a web portal. The B2B product supports all of the features business payments require, including invoice tracking and reference numbers.

“Banks are eager to replace the legacy systems of of ACH and SWIFT,” said Thomas Jankovich, Principal at Deloitte. “With all of the friction involved in sending payments—3-7 days to resolve transactions, high fees—we can erase those pain points using cutting-edge technology now.”

Deloitte has emerged as one of the key leaders in adopting blockchain technologies and sees Stellar as a key part of their solution. Stellar connects financial institutions, payments systems, and people, allowing them to send money to anyone quickly and reliably. The Stellar network is designed to reduce friction and fees for micropayments and remittances to make affordable financial services accessible to everyone.

“We’re excited a team with such prestige and expansive reach has integrated with Stellar,” said Jed McCaleb, cofounder and CTO of Stellar.org.

Deloitte estimates that by this time next year, they would have launched a product in partnership with a financial institution. With a sales team of 250, Deloitte will spend 2016 investing in relationships with financial institutions around the Digital Bank product.