The Central Bank of Bahrain announced a partnership with the American bank JPMorgan Chase and the Arab Banking Corporation BSC (Bank ABC) to test the blockchain for international settlements.
The central bank of Bahrain has announced that a pilot project will be launched with these banks to implement a blockchain-based solution for instant cross-border payments. They will be carried out in US dollars between Bahrain and US buyers and suppliers.
During testing, banks plan to expand experiments with the latest technologies to use digital currencies of central banks. Bank of Bahrain Governor Rasheed Al-Maraj said the central bank is working with JPMorgan and Bank ABC to improve payment efficiency and address international settlement issues.
Onyx, the blockchain development arm of JPMorgan, will also join the project. Ali Moosa, JPMorgan’s Deputy Chairman of Wholesale Payments, added that Onyx is working to create a next-generation clearing and settlement infrastructure, making the partnership with Bahrain’s central bank a milestone in JPMorgan’s history.
Note that in 2017, JPMorgan launched the Interbank Information Network (IIN) for fast data exchange, and in October 2020 it was renamed Liink.
JPMorgan is actively promoting blockchain adoption in the financial industry by partnering with banks around the world. So, at the end of April, JPMorgan announced a partnership with Singapore’s largest bank DBS and investment firm Temasek to conduct international payments and interbank transactions using the blockchain. In February, the State Bank of India (SBI) also began using Liink technology to lower operating costs and speed up payments.
