Mizuho Financial Group and IBM have announced a test of the potential of blockchain for use in settlements with virtual currency. By doing this, Mizuho hopes to explore how payments can be instantaneously swapped, potentially leading to new financial services based on blockchain technology. The pilot project uses the open source code IBM contributed to the Hyperledger Project.
Masahiko Katou, Senior Technical Officer of Mizuho Financial Group, remarked: “Mizuho Financial Group has a history of adopting new technologies to continuously improve customer services. In an era of technology transformation, Mizuho is testing blockchain, Watson, and other technologies to deliver high quality and more efficient customer services.”
Mizuho is working with the newly-opened IBM Bluemix Garage in Tokyo, which offers IBM Blockchain services, including blockchain application development using Bluemix, IBM’s cloud platform, and assessments to determine the best uses for blockchain within the enterprise and across various industries. Based on global insights across various industries and the experience of system development at Mizuho FG, IBM is aiming to aid the bank in transforming its design and development of business applications using blockchain.
Masao Sanbe, Managing Director of Industry Sales at IBM Japan, noted: “Mizuho Financial Group is a leading financial institution known for adopting advanced technologies such as IBM Watson. IBM understands how to use blockchain and IBM Cloud as the technology foundation to transform the way businesses interact with their ecosystem of trading partners. IBM is proud to continue to support Mizuho Financial Group’s important initiatives.”
IBM is working with hundreds of clients to understand what it takes to make blockchain ready for business. Through its open source contributions and resources for blockchain software developers, IBM is advancing the development of blockchain, with the aim of removing complexity and making it more accessible and open. Financial services, supply chains, IoT, risk management, digital rights management and healthcare are some of the areas that could potentially benefit from significant change by using blockchain networks.
