Siam Commercial Bank, PTTEP develop B2B payment system

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Siam Commercial Bank Company (SCB) and PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Ltd (PTTEP) announced that they have implemented a new live payment system. They will use blockchain technology to process cross-border B2B payments. This new payment system will be included on the RippleNet, as Ripple is a partner with SCB.

The project had been in the works since the middle part of last year, and they had begun testing pilot payments using the blockchain technology earlier this year. The goal was for payments to reach destinations within a single minute. This would be a dramatic improvement as payment processing using previous technologies could take as much as two days before the transaction was completely processed.

The plan is to implement the system in Southeast Asian countries during the year, giving it a more comprehensive test before looking to expand globally. In a statement issued by SCB Chief Wholesale Banking Officer Wasin Saiyawan, he explained:

“We are now ready to take the success of this service forward to set a new norm for the industry, enabling our customers to enjoy efficient and speedy service. The service will be implemented in all CLMV and Southeast Asian countries by this year, which will serve as a major milestone in the development of cross-border payment services.”

The collaboration project is going to be a major step in the handling of cross-border payments. No longer will financial institutions and consumers have to wait for extended periods of time for payments to be processed, as the new blockchain technology will “optimize its digital competitiveness effectively and quickly.”

The Siam Commercial Bank had already been involved in a number of different projects looking to use technology to improve the customer experience. In August 2018 they joined with seven other financial institutions to develop a new distributed ledger technology that was expected to improve the overall operational efficiency of the financial institutions.

SCB had been pushing the government of Thailand to start using blockchain technology as part of its revenue department. While the government agencies saw the technology as a means to help them to tackle those who were attempting to avoid paying taxes or to enable them to more efficiently investigate fraud, SCB called upon the government to start using the technology to improve the overall security and efficiency of transfers and record-keeping between the government and financial institutions.

This while they were already working with PTTEP to develop the new payment processing platform. Working with PTTEP was the perfect choice as they have been involved in cross-border financial transactions for years, so the development of the technology with the transfer platform has made for up the perfect partnership.