The Redmond-based tech giant, Microsoft is not new to blockchain technology. The company has been offering its Blockchain as a Service product to various blockchain initiatives for a while now. Recently, it has further expanded its reach in the Asian market by entering into an exclusive partnership with the Indian blockchain initiative for the banking sector.
Earlier this year, few leading Indian banking institutions joined forces to explore the use of cryptocurrency technology in their operations. The project, called BankChain has names like State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, DCB Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bank of Baroda, Deutsche Bank and others associated with it. Primechain Technologies are providing the technology support for the blockchain project.
According to media reports, the existing relationship between Microsoft and Primechain has influenced the adoption of Azure blockchain and cloud services for development and implementation of the BankChain project. The consortium is said to be focusing on a variety of distributed ledger solutions, of which KYC management takes the top priority. The General Manager — Enterprise and Partner Group and Microsoft Peter Gartenberg was quoted in the news report stating,
“The partnership with BankChain underscores our commitment to enable digital transformation of the BFSI sector in India. Blockchain is one of the most exciting innovations in this sector, and we at Microsoft are leading this trend by offering the best-in-class Azure Blockchain offering. We look forward to working with stakeholders like Primechain to make this partnership a success.
Compared to other global banking institutions, the Indian players have entered the market significantly late. With the implementation of BankChain, the Indian banking sector is attempting to keep with the likes of R3 Consortium, Hyperledger, and others. The increasing need for IT infrastructure to implement the blockchain solutions within enterprises has encouraged almost all leading tech companies to come up with their own versions of blockchain as a service platforms.
Similar to Microsoft, IBM has been offering its Hyperledger Fabric based blockchain solution to a variety of business of all sizes. There are a couple of pilot blockchain projects currently implemented by few banks in the country. However, widespread mainstream adoption may take a long time.
Ref: Times of India |Image: NewsBTC