New Public Chains and Central Bank Initiatives Propel Institutional Finance On-Chain

The institutional finance sector is witnessing a surge in blockchain innovation, with new platforms and central bank initiatives driving the adoption of on-chain solutions for asset tokenization and financial instruments. Rayls, a prominent player in this space, announced the launch of its Public Chain Mainnet on April 30th, building on strategic collaborations with major financial partners and institutions including Mastercard, XP Inc., and JP Morgan Kinexys.

The Rayls platform is designed to enable institutions to tokenize assets within private environments and then distribute them via an interoperable public chain. This hybrid approach, combining private permissioned chains with a public permissionless chain, aims to deliver a compliant and interoperable blockchain infrastructure specifically for institutional use cases. A key feature of the new Public Chain is Axyl, a novel blockchain consensus system that boasts instant transaction finality, high throughput exceeding 15,000 transactions per second, and the use of stablecoin as a gas fee. The platform supports the tokenization of various receivables, including those from credit card payments, commercial invoicing, and trade finance transactions, with the goal of enhancing efficiency, traceability, and establishing on-chain credit infrastructure globally.

In a parallel development showcasing governmental adoption, the Bank of Thailand has launched what it claims to be the world’s first blockchain-based platform for government savings bonds. This initiative, undertaken with technology partner IBM, has already seen the issuance of $1.6 billion on the system. The platform has dramatically reduced the bond issuance process from 15 days to just two, while also decreasing operational complexity and overall costs. The central bank plans to extend this blockchain technology to all other government bonds for both retail and wholesale investors.

The Bank of Thailand is not new to leveraging blockchain; in 2019, it launched a blockchain-based platform for electronic letters of guarantee, which now handles approximately $300 million in guarantee letters with participation from 22 banks and 15 companies. The Thai Customs Department also utilizes TradeLens, a blockchain-based global trade digitization platform.

These advancements are further supported by global regulatory bodies actively exploring the potential of such innovative technologies. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), through the BIS Innovation Hub, are holding a hackathon to examine ‘tradetech’ solutions, including blockchain, to facilitate trade finance. This collective interest from both private and public sectors signals a robust future for blockchain in reshaping global finance.