UAE’s leading banking group Emirates NBD has partnered with Indian banking giant ICICI Bank and Infosys Finacle to complete blockchain-based transactions in international trade finance and remittance.

According to the official release, the announcement of  the successful launch of Emirates NBD’s pilot blockchain network for banking services was announced by His Highness Shaikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman, Emirates NBD. This marks Emirates NBD as the first bank in UAE to complete pilot blockchain network and also India’s first blockchain transaction.

“Our pilot project, a first for the banking sector in the UAE, demonstrates blockchain’s immense potential to change how organisations and governments conduct business. We look forward to further collaboration with the public sector and our private peers to further adoption of this technology in the UAE,” H.H. Shaikh Ahmed stated.

During the announcement, H.H. Shaikh Ahmed mentioned that the Emirates NBD is currently engaged with trailing blockchain technology across multiple banking and payment services. The pilot project was undertaken by Emirates NBD Future Lab and was executed by using an Infosys solution, EdgeVerve Blockchain Framework, a permissioned ledger designed specifically for the banking sector that can scale up to experiment several business use cases.

“I envision that the emerging technology of blockchain will play a significant role in banking in the coming years by making complex bilateral and multilateral banking transactions seamless, quick and more secure,” Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO of ICICI Bank said as reported by The Hindu.

The pilot blockchain network project demonstrated how banks can significantly reduce transaction costs and time. Also, the trade finance purchase order and invoice financing cycle tests that were conducted, demonstrated a near real-time transfer of invoices and purchase orders in secure as well as transparent manner.