Indian Tech Giant Mahindra Speeds Up Cross Border Transactions with Blockchain

India’s Tech Mahindra said faster reconciliation and a reduction in paperwork are just two of the benefits of using the Marco Polo blockchain platform.

Tech Mahindra, the IT subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group, has become the first Indian business to use R3’s blockchain-based Marco Polo Network for conducting cross-border transactions.

It said the platform had resulted in faster reconciliation and ambiguity resolution, as well as the significant reduction of paperwork and time required for the entire transaction cycle.

Tech Mahindra partnered with Singapore’s DBS Bank, which facilitated the transactions and acted as the company’s leading trade bank. The parties used the Marco Polo Receivables Discounting product which is designed to help companies optimise their working capital, improve liquidity and mitigate credit risk.

Marco Polo is a consortium of major global financial and banking institutions that aims to streamline international trade. The network is built on R3’s open-source blockchain platform Corda.

Distinct improvements to existing platforms

Sriram Muthukrishnan, group head of trade product management at DBS Bank, said that the bank’s goal is to provide a seamless end-to-end trade financing experience for its customers:

“Technology plays a monumental role in breaking down barriers in cross-border trade and will remain key in facilitating the continued growth of international trade and businesses. This joint initiative with Marco Polo and Tech Mahindra complements DBS’ efforts to help our clients unlock greater efficiencies through the digitalisation of often manual and complex trade finance processes.”

Tech Mahindra is exploring blockchain

Tech Mahindra is not new to blockchain technology and has its own specialized blockchain unit. Last month, the company launched a blockchain accelerator in partnership with the government of one of India’s states. The accelerator aims to foster blockchain startups that have strong real-world use cases and to boost industry growth overall.

In September 2019, the tech company partnered with American distributed ledger technology firm Adjoint to launch a blockchain financial management and insurance solution.