A consortium of Australia-based financial services companies have
teamed up with IBM and shopping center operator Scentre Group to launch a
pilot that puts retail lease bank guarantees on a private blockchain.
Lygon – launched with participation from ANZ, Commonwealth, and
Westpac banks on July 3 – will collect and digitize data from a test
group of Scentre Group lease holders across Australia.
The firms involve hope the Lygon platform will shorten the time it
takes for banks to issue guarantees, reducing that time to a day. The
same validation could take up to a month if being issued on paper, based
on current practices.
Additionally, digitization reduces the risk of fraud and errors
across the billions of dollars banks guarantee, the Lygon backers
contend. All Australian retailers need a bank guarantee to secure such a
lease and operate their stores.
Contingent on a successful pilot, Lygon will offer access to the
platform to all bank issuers, lease applicants, and beneficiaries. The
five founding members may also expand research into other industry uses.
IBM did not respond to request for comment.
The Lygon effort represents the latest blockchain-based system built specifically for bank guarantees. In 2017, the Belarussian Central Bank approved usage of blockchains for this kind of service, and in 2018 the multinational banking firm Standard Chartered partnered with manufacturing giant Siemens for a trade finance bank guarantee pilot.
A similar pilot
involving IBM, Westpac, Scentre Group and ANZ was successfully
concluded in 2017. At the time, the consortium concluded that in order
to receive industry adoption, the project “needs to be scaled and
discussed with a broader range of participants.”
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