Citi Completes Cross-Border Payments Pilot Using LACChain

Citi teamed with the Inter-American Development Bank to send cross-border payments between the U.S. and Latin America.

AccessTimeIconApr 8, 2021 at 3:09 p.m. UTC
Updated May 9, 2023 at 3:17 a.m. UTC
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The innovation arm of multinational finance giant Citi has wrapped a proof-of-concept project with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to send cross-border payments on a blockchain.

  • According to an announcement Thursday, the project used the LACChain Blockchain Network to power payments from the IDB’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to a recipient in the Dominican Republic.
  • LACChain runs on EOSIO and recently enlisted Block.one, the firm that raised $4 billion to build the software in 2018, as a partner.
  • Funds were deposited in dollars in a Citi account, tokenized and transferred using digital wallets before being transferred into Dominican pesos at an exchange rate set by Citi.
  • The IADB believes this project demonstrates how blockchain technology can improve the process of cross-border payments in development assistance and international remittances.
  • Projects of this nature are becoming fairly commonplace in the payments sector. The central banks of Hong Kong, Thailand, China and UAE recently joined forces on a project to use blockchain technology for regional payments.
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