The Chinese central bank’s Trade Finance Blockchain Platform (贸易金融区块链平台) has seen sizeable growth in its associated financial institutions since its launch ten months ago.
The platform has already connected with 28 banks and 483 network points in the Shenzhen municipal area, as well as processed over 30 billion yuan in outbound payments operations according to figures revealed by Xing Yujing (邢毓静), party secretary of the Shenzhen central bank branch of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), on 4 July.
The platform was first launched in September 2018 by the Shenzhen branch of PBOC, in tandem with the Central Bank Digital Currency Research Institute (央行数字货币研究所) and five local banking-sector financial institutions.
The trade platform has been used for a range of applications, including supply chain receivables financing, cross-border financing, international trade account monitoring and outbound payment tax filing forms.
The platform plans to soon incorporate Weipiaotong (微票通) operations, prior to the implementation of further plans to establish a nationwide platform and connect to similar platforms in Hong Kong and other jurisdictions.
Xing Yujing praised the ability of the platform to provide dynamic, real-time monitoring of the financial activities it facilitates, highlighting in particular the shared, tamper-proof nature of information on cross-border transactions.
Xing also said that the platform helped resolve problems in relation to verification challenges duplicate inspections by human staff, as well as false transactions.
