About 85% of Italian banks have started using the R3 Corda blockchain to smarten up the process of cross-checking transaction registries, sharing data, and increasing transparency between banks.
Silvia Attanasio, head of innovation at the Italian Banking Association (ABI), said the interbank matching process and the technology behind the data exchange need to change. In the old system, data matching took a long time – from 30 to 50 days, and thanks to the Corda blockchain, the process is completed within a day.
In 2019, the Italian Interbank Agreement was updated to include the standardization of data. Italian authorities have set a deadline of 1 March to 1 October 2020 for integration into this blockchain standard that banks could use to comply with the new requirements. NTT Data has developed a related network operated by the banking technology company SIA.
The project is now in its second rollout phase: about 85% of Italian banks, or 55 banks, use the data exchange platform. In the third and final phase, scheduled for October, the Association expects 70 to 100 banks to join the platform.
According to Demetrio Migliorati, blockchain manager at Banca Mediolanum, before the implementation of the Spunta system, each bank had its own data exchange software. Using Corda for interbank data exchange has become more profitable.
The plans of Italian banks to introduce blockchain for data exchange became known last summer. The ABI blockchain interbank system successfully passed the initial examination phase in October 2018 with the participation of 14 local banks. Also, last month, Italian banks expressed an opinion in favor of the development of a digital euro.
