Standard Bank Group, the largest African bank by asset management, has partnered with Hedera Hashgraph, an enterprise-grade distributed public ledger. Hedera, a decentralized enterprise-grade public network, allows anyone to build applications and is owned and governed by a governing council.
In response to the news and in line with the recovery across the crypto market, the price of HBAR has jumped more than 20% to $0.129.
The bank, which has a 156-year history in South Africa, has established Africa’s first Hedera network node to solve the issues such as lack of transparency, lengthy settlement periods, and information asymmetry in cross-border trade.
The bank is already using blockchain and distributed ledger technologies for several use cases, including foreign exchange (FX) payments and settlements. Adrian Vermooten, bank’s Chief Innovation Officer said,
“As an organization, we have established that blockchain technology can track and leapfrog legacy issues that prevent a seamless and transparent payment experience for the customer, which ultimately enables cost savings for all stakeholders.”
While domestic payments are already instant, cheap, and transparent, the banks note that cross-border transactions are subject to several complications like dependency on banking networks.
With the help of stablecoins and digital currencies, instant settlement with high liquidity and visibility can be achieved. Ian Putter, Head of DLT/Blockchain at Standard Bank Group said,
“As we see increasing interest in Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), tokenization of assets, and utilization of stablecoins, it has become increasingly clear that digitization of assets will impact all facets of our business, and we must strategically plan for these pieces to work seamlessly together.”
The bank is also joining the Hedera Governing Council and will be responsible for running the initial nodes just like its other members, including Boeing, Dentons, Deutsche Telekom, Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Tata Communications, University College London (UCL), Wipro, and many others.
The members guide both strategy and software development, ensure stability, and maintain its decentralization with a governance model that eliminates the risk of forks and preserves the integrity of the network.
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