ATB Financial has collaborated with SAP, financial technology start-up Ripple Labs and ReiseBank AG to send the world’s first real-time payment from Canada to Germany through blockchain technology.
The blockchain technology prototype connects SAP HANA Cloud Platform and the SAP Payment Engine application, which centralizes payment processing in one solution, with Ripple’s network.
ATB successfully transferred CA$1,000 (EUR 667) to ReiseBank using a network built on SAP technology and Ripple’s network of enterprise blockchain solutions. For the demonstration, SAP provided a mobile user interface through which the payment was executed.
The payment, which would typically have taken between two to six business days to process because of requirements such as settling with the counterparty bank and reconciling accounts, was completed in around 20 seconds.
“Although we are very much still in the early stages of blockchain adoption, it was highly encouraging to see in a true demonstration the potential it has in transforming cross-border payments, making them almost instantaneous and reducing potential errors,” said Curtis Stange, chief strategy and operations officer, ATB Financial.