Russian Alfa-Bank, X5 Retail Partner To Introduce BaaS Platform on Waves Blockchain

Russia’s Alfa-Bank and X5 Retail Group are partnering to introduce a blockchain based liquidity management service in the country.

The service, named Distributed Treasury and Cash Management (DTCM) facilitates Alfa-Bank’s corporate customers to administer their payments, deposit and loan products, along with liquidity pool inside the holding.

The service is described as a “bridge to the Bank-as-a-Service (BaaS) model for corporations.” Denis Dodon, Director of the Alfa-Bank Center for Innovations Research and Development, explained the difference between DTCM and other services.

“The key difference between DTCM and other offers available on the market is that we give our client not just a channel to send orders to the bank but a way to shape up business logic of the product and actually ‘create a bank’ for the client’s convenience.”

In contradiction to conventional banking framework, the BaaS standard permits the clients to personalize the service. DTCM is run on the Waves blockchain platform, built for enterprises, and utilizes smart contracts.

X5 Retail Group CFO Svetlana Demyashkevich commented:

“The experience gained jointly with Alfa-Bank and Waves Enterprise constitutes a new benchmark in our interaction with banks: we get a unified treasury application, improve data management, and cut costs and operational risks.”

Demyashkevich also elaborated that X5 aims to widen the use of Distributed Ledger Technology to improve procedures. She opined that blockchain technology will “be used in other forms of interaction with partners, such as payments, encashment and optimized collaboration with insurance companies.”

Notably, renowned Spanish bank Banco Santander carried out the issue of a bond totally using a blockchain platform.