Among the many enterprises experimenting with blockchain technology and applying it to optimize processes and enhance overall efficiency, one of them stands out from the rest: IBM. The tech giant is known for its continued involvement with the approach, including the already famous IBM Food Trust.

Now, the prominent technology company has added a new offering to its already broad blockchain catalog: the World Wire. The latest piece of news is coming from financial news network Cheddar, which reported on Monday March 18th, that as many as six global banks have already signed letters of intent to issue their stablecoins through IBM’s World Wire.

The Blockchain World Wire (BWW)

The World Wire is a blockchain-based payments network developed by IBM and deployed by the six banks. The announcement of the Blockchain World Wire (BWW, as it is shortened) came on September 2018, but it is now live and active to offers its services to financial institutions.

The report of the BWW’s launch was produced via a joint announcement between IBM and Stellar, at the Money 2020 Asia in Singapore. The cross-border payment ecosystem was launched by IBM and thanks to the collaboration of Stellar (XLM,) and has more than 44 financial institutions on service. Its primary goal is to leverage crypto assets to achieve near real-time settlements between the banks involved in the project.

The Banks That Want to Issue Stablecoins on BWW

Among the banks that kicked off the week announcing their intentions to issue fiat-backed stablecoins on the BWW are Banco Bradesco (Brazil,) Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (the Philippines,) and Bank Busan (South Korea.) The identities of the other three institutions were not revealed, but Jesse Lund, the current Head of blockchain solutions of IBM, expressed that they will issue stablecoins backed by the euro and the rupiah (Indonesia.)

It was a busy Monday for IBM. In addition to the announcement of the bank-issues stablecoins, the tech company revealed that it established a strategic alliance with another Stellar-based, dollar-backed asset named Stronghold. It will develop the world’s first Stellar stablecoin.

According to Lund, IBM aims to continue broadening its blockchain-powered settlement product with more offerings and features in the future, showing the company’s desire to keep taking advantage of the blockchain technology.

Changing the Landscape of Cross-Border Payments

“We let the market drive the expansion and selection of the network incrementally. We are really feeling excited that we are on a roll to build something new and revolutionary that’s really going to change the landscape of cross-border payments,” he said.

The BWW is currently supporting almost 50 currencies for payments in over 70 nations around the world, with expansion plans looming. The BWW presents the XLM token as a settlement product for fiat assets between institutional agents.

Lund also explained that IBM’s view for stablecoins “is really that they should be more broadly accessible and what World Wire seeks to do is to provide fungibility of digital assets across financial institutions.”

By Andres Chavez

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