HSBC moves Corda Enterprise Blockchain Technology on to Google Cloud

By Leandra Monteiro

HSBC has become the first financial institution to move software firm R3’s blockchain platform Corda Enterprise on to Google Cloud. This will decrease their customers onboarding times from months to weeks, improving the client experience and significantly reducing costs. The bank currently uses R3’s Corda technology for Digital Vault, HSBC’s custody blockchain platform.

Moving the Corda technology to Google Cloud gives HSBC the opportunity to move more of the transaction lifecycle on to the ledger in future. The bank will also be able to issue digital tokens instead of paper certificates. R3’s Corda platform enables businesses to transact directly and privately using smart contracts, reducing transaction and record-keeping costs and streamlining business operations.

Launched in 2019, the Digital Vault service digitises the transaction records of private placement assets including equity, debt and real estate. This enables global custody clients to access details of their private assets directly and in real-time instead of having to request a search of paper-based records. As a result, they can easily keep track of when they will receive the coupon on a private debt transaction or facilitate an audit of transaction records. The Digital Vault is currently available in Asia and will be rolled out in other regions in due course.

Gaurav Aggarwal, Head of Distributed Ledger Technology and Tokenisation, Markets & Securities Services, HSBC said, “Being the first organisation to move Corda technology to Google Cloud is a further sign of HSBC’s commitment to blockchain and cloud technologies. As well as cutting onboarding times and reducing costs, it will help us prepare for the future, in which the full transaction lifecycle could be stored on a distributed ledger.”

Cathy Minter, Chief Revenue Officer at R3 said, “Blockchain’s potential in supporting the custody of future digital asset classes is immense, and we have already seen this in practice with HSBC’s Digital Vault service. As HSBC moves Corda onto Google Cloud, clients will benefit from faster onboarding times and reduced costs. Corda was built with the highest standards of privacy and security in mind. The platform is ideally suited to empower HSBC’s global custody clients to access details of their private assets securely, and in real time.”

Derek White, Vice President, Global Financial Services, Google Cloud said, “As HSBC prepares for the future of banking, we are proud to provide the speed, scale and security of the best of cloud technology to connect consumers, businesses and ecosystems in new innovations.”