Qatar’s private bank Commercial Bank has introduced blockchain technology in fund transfer in a move to build an enhanced client experience in fields like international transfer and trade finance.

The Commercial Bank said that it has successfully completed the initial pilot tests using blockchain network for processing international transfers in collaboration with its regional partner banks including ABank in Turkey, National Bank of Oman, and United Arab Bank in the UAE, among others in India and Egypt.

“Commercial Bank is renowned for bringing to market leading technologies in Qatar’s banking industry and this blockchain pilot project for international remittances represents another ‘first to market’ digital innovation by Commercial Bank. Blockchain has huge potential to change the financial services sector and we are proud to be the pioneers in leading this change in Qatar by introducing yet another new technology to provide the best client experience for all our customers,” Joseph Abraham, CEO of Commercial Bank, stated.

The blockchain network created by the bank with the help of cloud-based ledger technology, improves automation between the banks, with increased transactional security, accuracy and speed. It also eradicates the necessity for intermediaries and enables Commercial Bank to provide its customers near to real-time bank-to-bank transfers at a low cost.

“This best in class technology was adopted by working in close cooperation with our regional alliance of banks. Blockchain allows us to enhance our client experience through creating efficiencies and reducing costs for international remittances and trade finance,” Samir El-Sheikh, COO of Commercial Bank, said.

With the successful testing of the pilot phase, the bank will be working on to obtain the necessary approvals from Qatar Central Bank and other stakeholders to extend Commercial Bank’s blockchain network in countries with high remittances corridors such as the Philippines, Nepal, Egypt, Pakistan, among others.

The bank will start working on the second phase of the project that will focus on trade finance transactions, extending the blockchain technology beyond payments to include legal and trade documents.