Banco Sabadell, Banco Santander, Bankia, BBVA and CaixaBank have successfully completed a proof-of-concept test to enable the execution of payments triggered by smart contracts in blockchain networks.
The initiative, coordinated by Iberpay, the company that manages the Spanish Payment System (SNCE), confirmed the viability of employing blockchain technology to the payments sector, allowing the automatic execution of payments when certain pre-established conditions are met, such as the automatic payment upon signing a contract or the execution of automatic payments upon receipt or shipment of goods.
During the tests, more than 20000 payments were executed across seven operating nodes, dubbed red-i.
Iberpay says that with an average of 2.5 seconds per completed payment the trials confirmed the potential use of the system in real production environments.
The first business case tested deployed a smart contract for the management of bank guarantees to automate the issuing, registering, executing and cancelling customer bank guarantees. Additionally, the case incorporated a 'notary participant' that simulates a State or Court injunction that may approve the execution of the guarantee when the established conditions are met, automatically triggering its associated payment.
The next step in the programme will entail the connection between red-i and other non-banking networks or mixed networks through an API developed and managed by Iberpay.