Payment solution provider giant Visa has revealed plans to launch the commercial version of its blockchain-based platform for business payments, Visa B2B Connect.
Visa has been working on the B2B Connect in partnership with Chain.Inc since 2016. The distributed ledger platform is designed to help banks and financial services providers facilitate cross-border payments in a fast, secure, and more transparent manner. The platform is now integrating open-source blockchain code from Hyperledger Fabric from the Linux Foundation to extend its functionality.
How Visa Blockchain Payment Platform Will Disrupt Cross-Border Payments
The B2B Connect operates as a digital identity platform that allows financial institutions to tokenize their sensitive data, including account numbers and banking details, giving them a unique identifier to facilitate transactions on the platform. It also provides security, safety, and compliance, helping to reduce fraud while facilitating payments and cross-border deals in a well-regulated, transparent business climate.
Global Head of Business Solutions, Kevin Phalen commented:
“B2B Connect’s digital identity greatly reduces the opportunity for fraud that might otherwise exist with checks, ACH, and wire transfers today, while also helping companies remain compliant as part of the regulated financial ecosystem.”
Visa B2B Connect pilot project aims to process near real-time transactions for the exchange of high-value international payments between participating banks on behalf of their corporate clients. The platform is particularly designed for financial institutions serving clients in business verticals such as supply chain, trade, and institutional banking. In other words, Visa’s corporate clients can pay their foreign vendors and accept payments from their international customers seamlessly using the platform. However, Visa says only participating banks and their technology partners are allowed to conduct cross-border transactions on the platform.
The B2B Connect also provides an API that banks can use to integrate with their systems to onboard customers, facilitate payments, check foreign exchange rates, and create a list of eligible suppliers. Banks can also search for Visa B2B Connect payments that are made or received by its enrolled corporate clients.
B2B Connect to Integrate Hyperledger Fabric
To prepare for the commercial launch, Visa has partnered with IBM with the intention to add more functionalities to the B2B Connect platform. The new partnership will see Visa integrate open source code from Hyperledger Fabric with Visa’s core assets. This will help the company to enhance the facilitation of financial transactions and allow it to be able to scale using Fabric’s permissioned network.
Visa blockchain payment platform, which will not be officially launched until the first quarter of next year, is already being used by Thailand’s Kasikorn Bank and Union Bank of the Philippines among others. By leveraging the Hyperledger Fabric network, Visa is hoping to compete with the many blockchain-based cross border payment platforms and perhaps revolutionize the multi-billion dollar industry of cross-border B2B payments.
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