Blockchain firm ConsenSys announced Sep. 25 that it had been awarded the contract for a cross-border payment project between Thailand and Hong Kong.

The
company will lead the second implementation phase of Project
Ithanon-Lionrock. The project is a joint initiative to create a
cross-border central bank digital currency, or CBDC, payment network
between banks in the two countries.

Initiated in May 2019 by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, or HKMA, and the Bank of Thailand, or BOT, the project announced the results of its initial research phase
back in January. This found that there was significant potential to use
DLT technology to reduce intermediaries and settlement layers in the
current cross-border transfer process.

The aim now is to build a
proof-of-concept, setting up a cross-border corridor between Thailand’s
Ithanon and Hong Kong’s Lionrock networks. This will of course also
require a solution for seamless currency conversion between the Thai
baht and Hong Kong dollar.

ConsenSys will use its enterprise
Ethereum stack technologies, with a focus on prioritizing scalability,
security, and interoperability.

The company has previous experience of developing CBDC payment networks, having been involved in both Singapore central bank’s Project Ubin, and the South African central bank’s Project Khokha.

More recently, ConsenSys was in the news after acquiring the JPMorgan-developed blockchain project, Quorum.

source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/consensys-wins-contract-for-thailand-hong-kong-cbdc-project