Today Austrian cryptocurrency exchange Bitpanda announced that it had partnered with Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) so that RBI can explore blockchain interoperability. The Austrian bank with 16.7 million customers, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has an experimental RBI Coin that it launched with Billon which has a European e-money license.
In turn, Bitpanda has an interoperability project called Pantos which it developed together with the Technical University of Vienna.
We were curious whether this meant RBI was considering launching its coin on a public blockchain. This is what the leader of the RBI Blockchain Hub, Stefan Andjelic told Ledger Insights via email: “In regards to the blockchain developments, we are currently focused on building up a practical know-how and testing different types of blockchain-based concepts that can either help us improve currently existing processes or build new business models.”
He continued: “As such, the interoperability of different blockchain protocols is of utmost importance as it would allow the interaction between different solutions regardless of their underlying blockchain protocol. That was one of the key motives for us to partner up with Bitpanda and contribute to the Pantos project.”
Raiffeisen has extensive blockchain interests. It’s a member of the Marco Polo blockchain trade finance network where it has conducted pilots. In Moscow, it launched a blockchain platform for the fast settlement of intercompany payments. Plus, it has participated in trials of the IVNO platform for digitizing collateral.
