Siam Commercial Bank, PTTEP complete cross-border transactions using Ripple’s technology

Thailand-based Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) and PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP), a national petroleum exploration and production company, have successfully made pilot payments on blockchain, SCB announced earlier this month.

SCB and PTTEP teamed up in mid-2018 for a research and development effort focused on adopting blockchain technology in cross-border B2B payment.

In an official announcement, SCB said that they were able to carry out pilot payments on blockchain earlier this year. The pilot transactions demonstrated that “payments reached destinations within one minute, compared to one to two days with conventional methods.”

Although the latest announcement does not specify which blockchain was used for the pilot project, PTTEP CEO Khun Somporn Vongvuthipornchai had said last year they were collaborating with SCB to implement Ripple's blockchain technology in international money transfer transactions.

“The project marks a major success in bringing a new international payment service standard for corporate customers using Blockchain technology,” Siam Commercial Bank SEVP & Chief Wholesale Banking Officer Wasin Saiyawan said.

Saiyawan said that the blockchain-based service will be rolled out in all CLMV and southeast Asian countries by this year.

“We are now ready to take the success of this service forward to set a new norm for the industry, enabling our customers to enjoy efficient and speedy service,” he added.

Last September, SCB became the first financial institution on RippleNet to pioneer “multi-hop” feature, which allows the bank to settle frictionless payments on behalf of other financial institutions on the network.