Italian Blockchain Initiative Using 200 Banks and 200M Data Items in New Test

The tests for the blockchain initiative called Spunta by the Italian Banking Association (ABI) has reached a new phase. The new tests will involve putting 200 banks and 200 million data items through the wringer to see just how robust the entire system is. If it works, Spunta could then become the model for which global interbank reconciliations can be done.

When it was announced that ABI would be jumping into this new scene, it was revealed that it would be working with NTT Data Italia, R3, and Sia, TokenPost reports. At the time, Spunta was nothing more than a project designed to see if blockchain really can be used for interbank reconciliations. If successful, this would potentially result in more efficiency and transparency.

“The objective is to provide greater data transparency and visibility, faster execution and the possibility of performing checks and exchanges directly within the application,” the announcement press release read at the time.

It would appear that the tests have been going well since then and new details about the results of the project have been posted. Finextra has the details of the results and they appear to provide an encouraging picture in terms of where Spunta is going.

“Sixty days’ worth of real data were successfully uploaded in the autumn amounting to 1.2 million transactions relating to 14 banks and 14 infrastructure nodes. Following the inclusion in the project of other banks, 2 million transactions were uploaded with good performance, achieving 3.28s for queries of all movements in a node,” the report reads.

It would appear that at least part of the process is going smoothly. However, there are still a lot more tests that need to be done, especially considering just how many data points will still need to be uploaded. If the interbank reconciliation aspect of this project becomes a success, it could lead to some truly groundbreaking achievements in blockchain banking.