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Thai central bank taps cement giant for digital currency pilot

Thailan’s largest and oldest cement firm signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Bank of Thailand and Digital Ventures to develop a prototype system of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to enhance the efficiency of purchasing and payment management in the business sector.

The CBDC aims to reduce transaction steps and processing time, which will be conducive to boosting business confidence and competitiveness and promoting Fintech innovation in the future.

The partnership will optimise digital technology in business operations and initiate the development of the Central Bank Digital Currency system which is vital for the country’s economic development.

The MoU with Bank of Thailand and Digital Ventures to collectively develop the prototype system of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a significant milestone in boosting competitiveness for organisations and business partners and improving the payment infrastructure for the business sector in the future.

According to another article, the new CBDC payment system prototype will be integrated with the procurement and financial management systems of the cement giant and its suppliers.

The new BOT project will begin in July 2020 and is expected to conclude by the end of the year, after which the BOT will publish the project summary and outcome accordingly. The project scope will include conducting a feasibility study and developing a process to integrate CBDC.

The new project builds on two BOT Digital Ledger Technology (DLT) initiatives launched in 2018, Project Inthanon and Project Scripless Bond. These two initiatives were designed to catalyses an industry-wide exploration and assessment of the potentials and applications of DLT.

Project Inthanon is a collaborative effort initiated by the BOT, together with eight commercial banks. The prime focus was to develop and test a DLT-based, real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) by issuing wholesale CBDC.

The project was based on a decentralized payment network set up on the Corda platform with the BOT node and participating bank nodes.

Corda is an open-source distributed ledger platform built to record and manage contracts between mutually distrusting parties. Corda was built by R3 in collaboration with financial institutions. It was designed to meet the requirements imposed by financial service regulators, conform to industry standards, and deliver on the promise of DLT. Corda was chosen as multiple networks can join to create a wider network with assets that can be transferred between them.

The notary service in Corda serves to prevent double-spending within the network. Once the notary service is satisfied that a digital token has not been spent before, it issues a signature to indicate transaction finality.

In assessing Inthanon, the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) concluded that DLT can implement key functionalities in RTGS, while smart contracts can handle complex use cases that include bond life cycle events, fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance. The technology also demonstrates the ability to support 24/7 payment operations and provides an atomic delivery-versus-payment settlement without intermediaries.

Further, the system was shown to provide a technical settlement finality for the fund’s transfer and the exchange between cash and bond tokens. Settlement finality describes the way a system reaches consensus when a change of ownership occurs.

Thus, the signing of the aforementioned MoU is in line with the vision of creating innovations to fulfil needs and rapidly changing customers’ behaviours, especially now with the ‘New Normal’ business landscape.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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