Indian private banking company Axis Bank has announced that it will leverage blockchain solutions for its operations, becoming the third lender in the country to use the technology, after ICICI Bank and Yes Bank, The Economic Times reported.
A statement said that Axis Bank has tied up with Ripple, a distributed ledger technology provider, to offer the solution and the bank will be using blockchain technology for cross-border remittances.
"We are committed to using innovation in technology to make banking simple and convenient for our customers," V. Srinivasan, deputy managing director at Axis Bank, stated, as reported by Economic Times. He also mentioned that remittances have become an important strategic area for the bank and the distributed ledger technology will offer real-time affordable money transfers.
The move follows after Axis Bank partnered with another major Indian banking firm Kotak Mahindra Bank, last year, to explore the potentials of blockchain in various business segments, including pilot transactions.
"Given its status as the fastest-growing major economy in the world and the top market for remittances, India is a very important market that is ripe for payments innovation," Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive of Ripple, said.
Indian banks are viewing blockchain as a key technology for its future applications. Last October, Indian banking giant ICICI Bank partnered with UAE’s leading banking group Emirates NBD and Infosys Finacle to complete blockchain-based transactions in international trade finance and remittance. Also, last week Yes Bank implemented multi-nodal blockchain solution by leveraging IBM Hybrid Cloud technology to completely digitize vendor financing.
