TORONTO, July 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ATB Financial,
the largest Alberta-based
financial institution, has collaborated with SAP SE (NYSE: SAP),
financial technology start-up Ripple Labs Inc. and ReiseBank AG in
Germany to send the first real
international blockchain payment from Canada to Germany.
ATB successfully transferred CA$1,000 (EUR 667) to ReiseBank using a network built on
SAP® technology and Ripple's pioneering network of enterprise
blockchain solutions. The payment, which would typically have taken
between two to six business days to process because of requirements
such as settling with the counterparty bank and reconciling
accounts, was completed in around 20 seconds.
"Although we are very much still in the early stages of
blockchain adoption, it was highly encouraging to see in a true
demonstration the potential it has in transforming cross-border
payments, making them almost instantaneous and reducing potential
errors," said Curtis Stange, chief
strategy and operations officer, ATB Financial. "Using SAP HANA
Cloud Platform, we're able to experiment and be nimble with
emerging innovations like blockchain. The next stage for us,
working with SAP and Ripple, will be to understand how the
front-end experience should work for the benefit of our customers,"
he added.
The blockchain, originally created as the foundation for trading
the digital currency bitcoin, is a distributed ledger that allows a
network of computers to settle transactions almost instantly and
with inherent security. Working with a team at ATB Financial, SAP
and Ripple designed and built a proof-of-concept prototype based on
the technology in nine working days. It demonstrated how banks can
improve the efficiency of cross-border payments to enhance their
global networks and be competitive on the world stage.
The technology prototype connects SAP HANA® Cloud Platform, the
open platform as a service from SAP, and the SAP Payment Engine
application, which centralizes payment processing in one solution,
with Ripple's network. For the demonstration, SAP provided a mobile
user interface through which the payment was executed.
"Banks like ATB that take a positive and proactive approach to
blockchain now can position themselves advantageously for when the
technology enters the mainstream," said Bernd Leukert, Member of the Executive Board of
SAP SE, Products & Innovation. "ATB's blockchain transaction
underscores the value of running a business on a full-fledged
digital core so it can react quickly to emerging possibilities and
avoid the threat of disruption."
In 2011, ATB Financial successfully migrated its entire legacy
banking system to a major new core system built using SAP
solutions, making it one of the largest scopes of any single
project in North American banking. The system has streamlined ATB
Financial's business processes and provides analytical insight so
the financial institution can deliver innovative products and
services through a variety of distribution channels as customers
demand.
For more information, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP
on Twitter at @sapnews.
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