Bank of China, one of the four largest banks in the country, will increase its research and development budget for fintech projects, including blockchain. <!–more–>

Liu Qiuwan, the chief information officer of Bank of China announced plans to increase spending for technological research with blockchain as one of the key points.

He noted that BoC’s investment in this areas will reportedly be more than 1 percent of the bank’s operating annual income, which in the fiscal year 2017 was 483.7 billion yuan ($70.9 trillion). Currently, Bank of China has been applying technology in the pilot blockchain of 12 projects, mainly focusing on data sharing, cross-border payment, digital currency, digital bills, etc. according to the statistics of the global blockchain enterprise patent rankings in 2017. Bank of China has 11 patent applications for blockchain, ranking 20th in the global business and ranking first in the domestic banking industry

It should be noted that according to International Data Corporation (IDC), blockchain technology research funding will reach 11,7 billion USD by 2022.