India’s top IT solutions and services provider, Infosys, has partnered with seven banks and plans to partner with more banks onboard to bring efficiency, transparency, and trust to the Indian banking industry by introducing solutions based on blockchain, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
The bank consortium called India Trade Connect, along with their technology partner, Infosys Finacle, recognized the opportunity that blockchain-based technology presented to digitize trade finance, which is mired in inefficiencies and is subject to fraud.
ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, RBL Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Bank, and South Indian Bank form a critical mass of participants to support India Trade Connect. They all were exploring the potential of blockchain technology to solve various operational pain points and generate new services. Similar to banks in other regions, the use cases being examined included not only trade finance but also remittances (cross-border payments) and other payments. The use case that stood out was domestic trade finance, which is a huge market in India (likely around $2.45 trillion in trade). In addition, this use case would be welcomed by the government since it would contribute to its broader “Digital India” campaign.
