India's Yes Bank has enlisted the help of IBM for a blockchain project that digitises vendor financing for client Bajaj Electricals.
The bank says that it has used IBM's Hybrid Cloud technology to build a vendor financing system which allows consumer electrical equipment manufacturing company Bajaj Electricals to digitise the process for discounting and disbursal of funds to its vendors by integrating seamlessly with Yes’s systems.
The business logic and rules are captured in a blockchain-based smart contract written by fintech startup Cateina Technologies.
Yes Bank says that this means that the entire process for bill discounting is cut from four days to almost real-time. In addition, the system ensures transparency for all parties through the shared public ledger, while the entire transaction history of a vendor is recorded and immutable.
Rana Kapoor, MD and CEO, Yes Bank, says: "We are glad that Bajaj Electricals is undertaking this technological leap and working with us to solve the current challenges in Vendor Financing solutions by effectively utilising blockchain capabilities.
"I strongly believe that we are only at the tip of the iceberg, and envision that Blockchain coupled with IBM’s Cognitive solution on Cloud platform will make a significant impact in the global Transaction Banking space by ensuring that the Financial Supply Chain is more robust, secure, seamlessly connected and provides a great customer experience."
Meanwhile, the bank is also tapping IBM's Watson Conversation service for an engagement programme for partners and external developers. The conversational agent service of IBM Bluemix cloud uses Watson APIs to create a natural language interaction for providing support on queries related to Yes Bank APIs.