Fourteen influential banks based in Thailand have founded the Thailand Blockchain Community Initiative (TBCI). Their new project aims to digitize “letters of guarantee” offered on a blockchain system, according to the Central Bank of Thailand.

The most influential and largest banks in Thailand are Bangkok Bank, Krung Thai Bank, Siam Commercial Bank and Kasikornbank. These will take part in the initiative mentioned above. We want to mention that the TBCI operates on Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric.

According to Nikkei Asian Review, “With this infrastructure sharing, banks do not need to invest on their own”, stated Veerathai Santiprabhob, the Governor of the Bank of Thailand.

“Interoperability enhances efficiency, reduces costs in our financial sector and addresses the needs of the consumer and the business sector”, he added.

Letters of guarantee are official documents issued by banks whereby the client undertakes to pay its debts according to the contractual obligations. In Thailand, their operation may take a few days. If these will be included in a blockchain platform, the execution time will significantly be reduced to just 30 minutes.

“For the business sector, the Thailand Blockchain Community Initiative will reduce the complexity of connecting to the same financial services provided by different banks, facilitate data verification on the same blockchain network, mitigate risks of counterfeiting and increase timeliness as well as security.”, according to the The Nation newspaper.

The new system based on the blockchain technology will be tested in the “sandbox” owned by the Thailand’s Central Bank. Subsequently, it will be used to issue new letters of guarantee in order to be auctioned and sold to state-owned enterprises. Also, other trading operations will take place in the domestic environment of the country.

The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, which is administered by the state and Siam Cement Group are planning to join the initiative as well.