Citi Completes Cross-Border Payments Pilot Using LACChain

The innovation arm of multinational finance giant Citi has wrapped a proof-of-concept project with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to send cross-border payments on a blockchain.

• According to an announcement Thursday, the project used the LACChain Blockchain Network to power payments from the IDB’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to a recipient in the Dominican Republic.
• LACChain runs on EOSIO and recently enlisted Block.one, the firm that raised $4 billion to build the software in 2018, as a partner.
• Funds were deposited in dollars in a Citi account, tokenized and transferred using digital wallets before being transferred into Dominican pesos at an exchange rate set by Citi.
• The IADB believes this project demonstrates how blockchain technology can improve the process of cross-border payments in development assistance and international remittances.
• Projects of this nature are becoming fairly commonplace in the payments sector. The central banks of Hong Kong, Thailand, China and UAE recently joined forces on a project to use blockchain technology for regional payments.

See also: The Real Trouble With Cross-Border Payments