Japan's Mizuho Bank conducts blockchain cross-border payment trial

Japanese banking group Mizuho has completed a cross-border securities settlement trial using blockchain.

The Open Assets protocol used in the trial is a conventional deployment of colored coins that provides an additional layer of functionality on the Bitcoin blockchain. By using Open Assets, Bitcoin can be specially tokenized to represent other assets on the blockchain.

According to a March 8 press release, participants in the trial include Japanese IT giant Fujitsu, including its research and development arm Fujitsu Laboratories.

Participants said the trial, which began in December and ended in February, showed that post-trade processing time could be reduced by using blockchain applications.

Mizuho said in a statement:

“In the system, blocks containing transaction information are continuously generated and linked in chronological order to form a blockchain, which becomes information that cannot be tampered with. Moreover, because information can be shared among multiple companies, partners have confirmed that it can shorten the time required for post-transaction procedures.”

Mizuho said the trial was seeking to facilitate post-trade procedures by both shortening their time and reducing the likelihood that data could be tampered with.