Today Tassat Group announced the go-live of The Digital Interbank Network for real-time business-to-business payments. Cogent Bank, Customers Bank and Western Alliance Bank started transacting on the private blockchain network on Saturday and completed 400 transactions worth $500 million.
The key benefits of the solution are that it enables 24/7 real-time payments without transaction limits while integrating with existing banking systems.
“It has been our long-held view that private permissioned blockchain technology operating entirely within the existing US banking system can deliver all the power of blockchain without the need to discard or replace the trusted U.S. banking system that has served the U.S. and the world for more than 100 years,” said Kevin R. Greene, Tassat’s Chairman and CEO.
Even though the solution uses blockchain, each payment is tied to a bank account at an FDIC-insured bank.
The solution is separate from TassatPay, which uses blockchain for payments within a single bank. All three banks are TassatPay customers, as are Signature bank, Axos Bank and Byline Bank, with a combined $600 billion in payments made using that solution.
Turning to the interbank network, apart from the three banks that are live, another eight banks have participated in a working group providing input into the solution. They are Byline Bank, California Bank of Commerce, Emprise Bank, First Foundation Bank, Lineage Bank, OceanFirst Bank, SouthState Bank and Texas Capital Bank.
Several blockchain-based interbank payment networks are in progress around the world. Seventeen large institutions have backed UK-based Fnality, which aims to launch this month. In Singapore, JP Morgan and DBS Bank are two of the backers of the Partior interbank network for multi-currency payments. And closer to home, the USDF Consortium is targeting interbank payments for community banks in the United States. Visa launched its
