ABI Lab tests domestic interbank reconciliation on the R3 Rope platform

ABI Lab is carrying out the first experimentation on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) applied to the interbank check, to simplify and standardize this process of reconciliation between banks, using the Corda platform created by R3. The aim is to verify the opportunities opened up by the use of this innovative technology to evaluate possible further applications to national and international banking processes.

ABI Lab - ABI's Research and Innovation Center made up of over 160 banks and 65 Information Technology companies - will verify in particular how the application of DLT technologies contributes to improving some specific aspects of current operations that can cause complex discrepancies and expensive for banks to manage. These include the time it takes to identify mismatched transactions between two banks; the lack of a standardized process and a single communication protocol; the limited visibility of transactions between the parties. In the project, ABI Lab will be supported by NTT Data, system integrator expert in Blockchain and DLT issues. Thanks to this technology, in fact, the Corda platform is able to provide a single immutable record for each transaction, optimizing exchanges between banks and simplifying the management of suspended transactions. At the same time, Corda can facilitate the reconciliation workflow, streamlining processes between different organizations and between different offices within the same bank, optimizing data quality and improving transparency.

Corda is a DLT platform inspired by the Blockchain and realized thanks to the close cooperation with over 100 banks, financial institutions, regulatory authorities, trade associations, professional services companies and technology companies. The platform allows banks to optimize transactions by operating directly through so-called smart contracts (smart contracts) and, at the same time, guarantees the highest levels of privacy and security.

"This project - said Pierfrancesco Gaggi, President of ABI Lab - will simplify the arrangement of suspended movements in relations between banks in terms of greater efficiency, transparency and speed of processes. In addition, the success of this first application of DLT technologies will hopefully lead to further subsequent uses, encouraging greater knowledge in the banking world of these innovative tools ".

David E. Rutter, CEO of R3, said: "The manual processes and systems used for the interbank check are challenging, expensive, laborious and error-prone. Working with ABI Lab, we are using Corda to automate the matching process, supporting Italian banks to better manage the suspended and in general to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the process. This experimentation will show how simple it is for banks to reduce operating and back office costs, saving time and exchanging security through the use of DLT ".

R3

R3 is a company software company that works with a network of over 160 banks, financial institutions, regulators, trade associations, professional services companies and technology companies to develop applications on Corda, its distributed database platform designed specifically for businesses .

The global R3 team, comprised of over 140 professionals in nine countries, is supported by more than 2.000 experts in technology, finance and legal aspects from its global network of members. R3 is backed by an investment of 107 million dollars from over 40 companies.

Corda is the result of over two years of intensive research and development by R3 and its members and meets the highest standards of the banking sector, but is applicable to any business scenario. Register, manage and execute agreements of different types between business organizations with perfect synchrony between the counterparts, generating an increase in efficiency in the world of commerce.

ABI Lab

ABI Lab is the Research and Innovation Center for the Bank promoted by the ABI (Italian Banking Association) in order to create a meeting and discussion context between banks and ICT and energy partners. ABI Lab deepens, develops and disseminates innovation in the banking and financial sector through its research activities and the sharing of knowledge on organizational and technological aspects, on security, on energy in the bank and on the methods of providing banking services. The Blockchain & DLT Observatory wants to represent a reference area for evaluating the technological paradigm with respect to implementation in the operational areas of banks. The activity has among the objectives, in addition to increasing knowledge on the principles and characteristics of the technology, that of identifying specific areas of application on which to concentrate efforts to create a cooperative pilot initiative that knows how to reap the benefits potentially achievable from the application a digital ledger distributed among banks.

ABI Lab tests domestic interbank reconciliation on the R3 Rope platform