Bank of America has revealed it is developing a blockchain-based trial centered on trade finance.

The move is the latest that finds the multinational banking institution seeking to position itself as an early adopter of the technology. In late December, Bank of America revealed it had filed a rush of new patents related to the industry, a development that followed the November news it had partnered with consortium startup R3.

Financial News reports that Bank of America believes blockchain could come to replace the more manual processes that dominate global trade.

Jason Tiede, head of innovation for global transaction services at Bank of America, told the news outlet:

“We are working on a pilot in the trade finance space. As trade finance often relies on manual, paper-based processes, it serves as an interesting use case of the value of digitising an asset on a distributed ledger.”

Notably, the project is being developed with another unnamed bank, outside of R3. Tiede suggested Bank of America’s pilot could be completed by this spring.

With the announcement, Bank of America joins Standard Chartered and Development Bank Singapore (DBS) as major banks that are seeking to apply blockchain technology for use in trade finance. Both Standard Chartered and DBS are currently working on a Ripple-based solution they aim to commercialize following successful testing.

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