TCS’ Quartz Cross Border Remittances solution to allow connecting to RippleNet

Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced that its Quartz Cross Border Remittances solution will enable banks/payments systems to connect to newer DLT (distributed ledger technology) based payment infrastructures such as RippleNet, Ripple’s blockchain-based payment network.

The company noted that the existing payments landscape faces a number of problems including multiple agents, high transaction costs, and delays in completing a remittance transaction. Moreover, the lack of real-time information on the status of the payment transaction leads to a lack of transparency on costs and deductions made for a transaction as well as huge challenges with reconciliation.

TCS’ Quartz Blockchain solutions aim to help organizations across multiple domains leverage blockchain meaningfully for their businesses. It comprises of Quartz Smart Solutions, Quartz DevKit, Quartz Gateway, and Quartz Command Center.

The company explained that the Quartz Gateway seamlessly connects the TCS BaNCS Payments system, a core banking software suite for use by retail banks, to the blockchain-based payments platform using APIs, and supports services related to FX Quote ­finalization and debit/credit of bene­ficiary accounts.

“Leveraging this approach, existing/core systems operational at banks/ other payment institutions need not undergo changes in connecting to the blockchain platform, as this complexity is absorbed by the Quartz Gateway,” TCS said.

Last month, TCS announced that it is using technologies from Microsoft and R3 to develop scalable cross-industry blockchain platform solutions. Importantly, R3 launched Corda Settler – an application that will facilitate global cryptocurrency payments on Corda – in December 2019 and added XRP as the first settlement mechanism. This means that it would be easier for Quartz to offer XRP integration to its clients, The Daily Hodl noted.

According to the document, the business benefits of Quartz cross border remittance solution include near real-time settlement of remittance instructions, lower charges due to disintermediation, instantaneous tracking of transaction status, elimination of reconciliation overheads, and audit trail for a complete history of transactions.

“DLT based payment infrastructure / ecosystems can reduce liquidity needs for banks/ ­financial Institutions, in managing Cross Border remittances - a huge bene­fit for the treasury department,” it added.

In addition to cross border remittance, other Quartz blockchain use cases include Contract Authoring, Settlements, and Reward Points.