HSBC Says It's Settled $250 Billion in Trades With Distributed Ledger Tech

HSBC, one of the largest banks in the world, announced Monday it had settled more than $250 billion in transactions using distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The bank said in a press release that it settled 3 million foreign exchange (FX) transactions and made a further 150,000 payments using its HSBC FX Everywhere platform. The company said it has been using this platform for the last year "to orchestrate payments across HSBC's internal balance sheets."

HSBC's platform has resulted in "significant efficiencies and opportunities," the release added. The bank did not specify if FX Everywhere was developed completely in-house or built on an open-source protocol.

In particular, the bank said that using a DLT platform has allowed it to verify that payments are settled without needing external confirmation; to unify intra-company trade data on a "shared, single version of the truth"; and to consolidate its view of cash flows.

In a statement, Richard Bibbey, HSBC's interim global head of FX and commodities, noted that the bank and its clients conduct "thousands of foreign exchange transactions," which can range across different balance sheets and countries.

The DLT platform makes these internal flows more efficient, he said, adding:

"Following successful implementation inside the bank, we are now exploring how this technology could help multinational clients – who also have multiple treasury centres and cross-border supply chains – better manage foreign exchange flows within their organisations."

HSBC has hinted at its work with blockchain technology in the past. Last February, HSBC senior innovation manager Joshua Kroeker said during a media call that the company was on the verge of launching pilot programs to organize blockchain transactions.

At the time, he cited a specific project aimed at digitizing letters of credit.

HSBC image via Vytautas Kielaitis / Shutterstock