Today Japanese card company JCB said it’s working with Datachain to explore blockchain interoperability. It’s particularly interested in working with enterprise-grade commercial services such as China’s Blockchain-based Services Network (BSN) to enable payments for blockchain applications.
Enabling assets to be instantly exchanged for digital currency, Delivery versus Payment (DvP) and Payment versus Payment are areas to be explored.
Datachain specializes in blockchain interoperability. Its Hyperledger Labs project, YUI, supports interoperability between enterprise blockchains Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Besu and Corda. It builds on the Cosmos Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC), which relays messages between the different chains.
One of the main drivers behind blockchain for business is to break down data silos and share data between companies. But as more and more blockchain applications come online, each blockchain network is another silo, albeit a larger one. While it’s possible to integrate two blockchains using APIs, there’s a strong preference to avoid the need for trusted third parties, which JCB is exploring here.
JCB is very active in blockchain innovations. It partnered with LayerX and recently published a joint paper on confidential computing and trusted execution environments. This type of technical solution can allow companies to share transaction data to calculate credit scoring without the other company seeing the underlying data. These private calculations work in a BlackBox-like environment.
Earlier this year, JCB said it was working with KeyChain for machine-to-machine payments, which could be used for road tolls or 5G payments. One of its first blockchain initiatives in 2019 was with B2B payments firm PayStand.
