The Italian banking industry and leading technology providers pioneer the use of blockchain, with a live application transforming interbank reconciliation.
The Spunta Banca DLT solution, built on Corda Enterprise by SIA, NTT Data and governed by ABI – the Italian Banking Association – is live with over 100 Italian banks, representing 91% of the nation’s banks. The 100 banks currently on the network have used Spunta DLT as the only reconciliation method between them since October 2020.
In the first 6 months, Spunta Banca DLT has processed 204 million transactions with an automatic match rate of 97.6%, transforming the interbank reconciliation process.
The industry problem
The reconciliation process for interbank transactions in Italy—formerly governed by the “spunta” process— has been notoriously complex. With multiple parties involved, the task of identifying and addressing inconsistencies has historically been hampered by a lack of standardization, the use of piecemeal and fragmented communication methods, and no “single version of the truth”. As a result, resolving mismatches in transactions has been a labor-intensive and time-consuming process.
The solution
Every day over 600 users wake up, access their bank’s node via the application and start transacting. The solution enables banks to pinpoint mismatches in interbank transactions quickly by sharing common data in a secure way; performing checks and exchanges directly within the application; and using standardized processes and communications for correcting issues.
The solution’s smart contract technology also provides banks with automated feedback on their transactions. The results include lower operational risk and faster, more transparent processes–all delivered through a highly user-friendly interface.
The outcome
Starting in March, the Spunta infrastructure has processed 204 million transactions related to the 55 banks who migrated in the first two waves—March and May 2020. Resulting in an estimated 350 million processed transactions by the end of 2020, with processing occurring only one hour per night.
Today, the network has reached 100 banks and represents a total of 91% of Italian banks now exchanging interbank data on Corda.
By October 2020, Spunta Banca DLT has processed 204 million transactions—achieving an automatic match rate of 97.6%.
Next steps
The next step will be to run the application at full capacity 24/7, with an estimated total volume of 8.4 billion transactions or more per year.
“Today the system is up and running, the performance is good, and the
volumes are there. We had a plan—a very important plan—to make this a system-wide solution that could be used by all Italian banks. And now the Italian banking industry, which is normally under the radar, is the first entire banking system to use distributed ledger technology in production.”
“We can really spread the ecosystem in Italy, and use this platform for many different use cases, from syndicated loans to anti-money laundering to know-your-customer and so on. We will all keep working together to really leverage the full potential of this technology.”
„The next step after this will be to extend the Spunta application to a European level. This will involve ABI Lab and the other partners in Italy working with banks in other European countries to define the requirements created by the characteristics of the ‘nostro’ and ‘vostro’ account process (…) So, the next step will be to set up a working group of
European banks to start this new part of the journey.”
For more details download Spunta Case Study (pdf format)
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
