ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac, IBM and Scentre Group are to formally launch a blockchain-based platform that reduces the time to issue a bank guarantee from one month to one day.
The commercial roll out of the platform, dubbed Lygon, follows a successful pilot with 20 businesses last year that transformed the cumbersome, paper-based, slow and costly bank guarantee process into digital form.
Thousands of merchants around Australia need bank guarantees to secure a lease over a retail tenancy. Historically, these guarantees have been issued manually and on paper, with the process taking up to a month.
Lygon slashes the time to as little as a day, while also promising to reduce the risk of fraud and the potential for errors.
Lygon chairman Nigel Dobson says: “The commercialisation of the Lygon platform represents a significant milestone for blockchain technology in Australia and globally.
“We’ve gone from a proof of concept to a newly incorporated company and commercially available platform in two years - at a time when the demand for digital has never been stronger."
Operating as a stand alone company jointly owned by the five founder members, Lygon will open to the general public in early 2021.