Kasikornbank (Kbank), which is the largest bank by market cap in Thailand has become the first financial institution on board with Visa to test its Visa B2B Connect pilot program based on Blockchain, a program by Visa.

Visa B2B Connect pilot program which was announced in October 2016 by Visa is a platform which Visa is developing with Chain(which was recently acquired by Stellar). Visa announced about it in October 2016 as-

Visa is working with Chain to build Visa B2B Connect using Chain Core, an enterprise blockchain infrastructure that facilitates financial transactions on scalable, private blockchain networks. Building on this technology, Visa is developing a new near real-time transaction system designed for the exchange of high-value international payments between participating banks on behalf of their corporate clients. Managed by Visa end-to-end, Visa B2B Connect will facilitate a consistent process to manage settlement through Visa’s standard practices.

With Visa B2B Connect, Visa aims to significantly improve the way international B2B payments are made today by offering clear costs, improved delivery time and visibility into the transaction process – ultimately reducing the investment and resources required by banks and their corporate clients to send and receive business payments.

Visa B2B Connect, which Visa plans to pilot in 2017, is designed to improve B2B payments by providing a system that is:

• Predictable and transparent: Banks and their corporate clients receive near real-time notification and finality of payment
• Secure: Signed and cryptographically linked transactions are designed to ensure an immutable system of record
• Trusted: All parties in the network are known participants on a permissioned private blockchain architecture that is operated by Visa

While Visa announced this in October 2016, the Pilot scheme was made available to participate in 2017 and had garnered interest from many financial institutions due to much importance being given to Blockchain technology.

last year bitcoin shot up to the moon and grabbed everyone’s attention and with it, attention came up heavily on blockchain technology, the technology on which Bitcoin and many other Crypto works. Since last year Blockchain and its capability to provide solutions in several Real world problems has been adored and several startups have started to tap into technology to provide viable solutions.

Kasikornbank (Kbank) is the first bank which has been introduced to the pilot program to simplify the cross-border payments. While there are several other financial entities which are interested in Visa’s B2B Connect program. This development on Blockchain by a Big entity like Visa is certainly a good development for Blockchain and in time pave way for adoption of already established crypto models of the same.