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Banks sign up to blockchain trial

Three of Australia’s biggest banks will partner with IBM and shopping centre owner Scentre to test blockchain technology, as the companies look to digitise bank guarantees.

ANZ, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank have announced they want to move away from paper-based guarantees, as they look to reduce the risk of fraud and cut processing times.

A new blockchain platform, Lygon, is being tested on a group of retail property-leasing customers in an eight-week pilot program.

“While the pilot is focused on retail property leasing, this technology has the potential to benefit many sectors and reduce the risk of fraud across billions of dollars guaranteed by the banks,” Didier Van Not, general manager corporate and institutional banking at Westpac, said in a statement.

Blockchain is an automated, computerised system to share, verify and permanently record data. The information is constantly reconciled into the database, which is stored in multiple locations and updated instantly.

The technology, used to secure cryptocurrency transactions, is becoming increasingly popular among mainstream businesses.

– with agencies

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