Bank of China Commits to Development of New Blockchain Applications

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A senior tech executive from one of China’s big state-owned banks has stressed the lender’s commitment to the development and application of distributed ledger technology.

Wang Lijing (王丽静), deputy-general manager of Bank of China’s (BOC) Software Centre, writes that “the financial sector and blockchain technology have a natural correspondence, and in recent years this has already become the most flourishing area of application and a backbone force of technological development.”

Wang made the remarks in an opinion piece published on 17 June entitled “The Blockchain – Building a Trustworthy Bridge for Financial Digital Transformation” (区块链 :搭建金融数字化转型的可信桥梁).

According to Wang Bank of China first launched research and development of blockchain technological applications in 2015, and has already completed the development of basic platforms as well as multiple “innovative applications.”

“Bank of China has actively engaged in research to provide base-level technological support to the creation of a new generation of fintech infrastructure,” said Wang.

Chief amongst this infrastructure is the “Bank of China Blockchain Internet Platform “中银区块链互联平台” developed in 2017, to cater to blockchain application services within the bank.

“The platform employs a unified management base technological framework to formulate modules for management operations,” wrote Wang. “It has already been successfully applied to areas including data sharing, public charity and trade finance.”

Wang highlighted BOC’s participation in the drafting of blockchain standards and benchmarks both within and outside of China, including the “Financial Distributed Ledger Security Standards” (融分布式账本安全规范) officially issued in February 2020, as well as the “ITU-T Financial Distributed Ledger Technological Application Guideline,” which is the world’s first international financial blockchain standard.

Wang also pointed to BOC’s application of blockchain technology to new cross-border payments models, raising the coordination and efficiency of trade finance, stepping up the transparency of fund regulatory procedures, and the digitisation of bond issuance.