JPMorgan Chase, together with several Indian banks, will launch a project aimed at creating a blockchain-based platform.

The platform, which will be the result of cooperation between the American banking giant and Indian lenders, will be designed for settlements on dollar transactions in the newest international financial center of India. In this case, mean settlements on interbank operations.

Kaustubh Kulkarni, senior Country Officer in India and Vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Branch of JPMorgan, during a conversation with media representatives, said that the pilot version of the cooperation project will be launched within the next few months and noted that it is necessary to analyze the experience of partners beforehand. He also said that private Indian lenders, including HDFC Bank Ltd., ICICI Bank Ltd., Axis Bank Ltd., Yes Bank Ltd., and IndusInd Bank Ltd. established partnership relations with an American financial institution. On the part of JPMorgan, the local division of the bank holding company located in GIFT City will participate in this project.

This partnership program is of particular importance to the Indian financial system. If the project is successful, substantial support will be provided to New Delhi’s efforts to turn the Gujarat International Financial Center, which is also often called the Gift City, into an alternative to the shopping malls of Singapore and Dubai. The Reserve Bank of India has already launched an internal non-deliverable forward market with dollar settlements in GIFT City.

Within the framework of those processes that currently form the basis of the Indian settlement system, the completion of transactions takes several hours. Also, the specifics of this system are that on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, users cannot make settlements on financial operations.

Against the background of the current features of the Indian payment space, blockchain has an unambiguous and clear advantage, manifested in the fact that in this case, transactions can be settled in real-time and around the clock.

Kulkarni stated that through the use of blockchain technology to facilitate transactions in 24×7 mode, processing occurs instantly and allows GIFT City banks to maintain their time zone and opening hours.

The pilot project will be launched using the JPMorgan Onyx blockchain platform. To implement this intention, approval from the Management of the International Center for Financial Services is required. Onyx, a blockchain-based platform for wholesale payment transactions, was created in 2020.

As we have reported earlier, JPMorgan On Track to Deliver $1 Billion in Value Through AI.