China’s central bank invests $4.7M on blockchain trade finance platform

China has remained one of the leading countries in terms of adoption of blockchain technology. The latest news is that the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) recently secured $4.7 million in funding from China’s central government for its blockchain trade finance platform. The funding is administered over three years and is mainly designated for research and development projects.

This blockchain trade finance platform is a joint venture by the Digital Currency Research Lab of the PBoC, major commercial banks in the country, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and top domestic universities like Tsinghua University, according to sources.

Many industry insiders are of the opinion that this funding will help drive the growth of the blockchain trade finance platform in the country. They also look at it as the central bank’s way of facilitating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access to a wider range of financing tools during the COVID-19 epidemic.

Interestingly, the blockchain trade finance platform was unveiled by PBoC way back in September 2018 and has efficiently decreased the time required to process trade financing from 10 days to about 20 minutes; corporate financing costs have also dropped to less than 6 percent.