JPMorgan Chase has partnered with six Indian banks to offer a blockchain-based platform for processing interbank dollar transactions in the country’s new international financial centre.
Kaustubh Kulkarni, JPMorgan’s senior country officer for India and vice president of Asia Pacific, made statements on the subject. Kulkarni said in a statement: “We will run a pilot project over the next few months as we need to analyze the experience of banks.” These banks include JPMorgan’s own banking unit in GIFT City, as well as leading private lenders such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank and IndusInd Bank.
With the New Move, Transactions Will Be Performed 24 Hours, 7 Days
This move by JPMorgan will add further impetus to New Delhi’s attempt to position Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, as an alternative trading hub to Singapore and Dubai.
The Reserve Bank of India has launched a domestic non-delivery futures market traded in dollars on GIFT City. In the current settlement system, transactions can take several hours to complete. Moreover, transactions do not take place on Saturdays, Sundays or public holidays. The real-time blockchain-powered system will remove this barrier, making all transactions available around the clock.
Kulkarni continued: “We will leverage blockchain technology to facilitate transactions 24/7. In this way, transactions will be instant and GIFT City will allow banks to support their own time zones and working hours.”
The pilot project will launch Monday using JPMorgan’s blockchain platform Onyx, following approval from the International Financial Services Central Authority.
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