Khokha trial good news for Namibia
The success of a recent payments through South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) distributed ledger technologies has encouraged the Bank of Namibia (BoN), which said this deepens the knowledge of central banking institutions around the world.
The Sarb recently carried out a trial under the auspices of Project Khokha, to assess the viability of making payments via block chain technologies, through its financial technology unit.
It successfully demonstrated a real-world trial of a distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based wholesale payment system.
A block chain is a ledger that records and stores electronic digital transactions without the need to house these transactions in a central file. The use of distributed ledger technologies opened the door for the creation of electronic currencies like Bitcoin.
Following the success of the trial by the South African central bank, BoN spokesperson Kazembire Zemburuka said the Namibian central bank has followed the development with keen interest. Notwithstanding the successful trial, Zemburuka said the central bank had already recognised the benefits stemming from distributed ledger technologies for Namibia.
“The Bank of Namibia takes a keen interest in all innovations impacting the financial system. From the bank's position paper released in 2017, the bank already recognised the potential benefits of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) in Namibia,” he said.
The development he said would also help in shaping future policy directions, should the BoN embrace DLTs.
“The South African experience should inform future complementary projects that can further enrich the understanding of the opportunities and risks on local and regional integrated payment systems presented by DLTs,” said Zemburuka.
The development was also important and could open the door for collaborative efforts in understanding the benefits of block chain payments, Zemburuka said.
“From a payment system efficiency point of view these developments add to the global body of knowledge in understanding the benefits of DLT and can foster collaborative efforts both within the region as well as internationally,” he said.
The Sarb released a report on Project Khokha, which focused on providing participants, including South African banks, practical experience of aspects of using a distributed ledger for payments. Different deployments models were tested.
“The results show that the typical daily volume of the South African payments system could be processed in less than two hours, with full confidentiality of transactions and settlement finality,” the Sarb said in the statement.
“Transactions were processed within two seconds, across a network of geographically distributed nodes, with distributed consensus providing the requisite resilience. The bank was able to view the detail of all the transactions to allow for regulatory oversight.”
-additional reporting by TechCentral
OGONE TLHAGE
The Sarb recently carried out a trial under the auspices of Project Khokha, to assess the viability of making payments via block chain technologies, through its financial technology unit.
It successfully demonstrated a real-world trial of a distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based wholesale payment system.
A block chain is a ledger that records and stores electronic digital transactions without the need to house these transactions in a central file. The use of distributed ledger technologies opened the door for the creation of electronic currencies like Bitcoin.
Following the success of the trial by the South African central bank, BoN spokesperson Kazembire Zemburuka said the Namibian central bank has followed the development with keen interest. Notwithstanding the successful trial, Zemburuka said the central bank had already recognised the benefits stemming from distributed ledger technologies for Namibia.
“The Bank of Namibia takes a keen interest in all innovations impacting the financial system. From the bank's position paper released in 2017, the bank already recognised the potential benefits of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) in Namibia,” he said.
The development he said would also help in shaping future policy directions, should the BoN embrace DLTs.
“The South African experience should inform future complementary projects that can further enrich the understanding of the opportunities and risks on local and regional integrated payment systems presented by DLTs,” said Zemburuka.
The development was also important and could open the door for collaborative efforts in understanding the benefits of block chain payments, Zemburuka said.
“From a payment system efficiency point of view these developments add to the global body of knowledge in understanding the benefits of DLT and can foster collaborative efforts both within the region as well as internationally,” he said.
The Sarb released a report on Project Khokha, which focused on providing participants, including South African banks, practical experience of aspects of using a distributed ledger for payments. Different deployments models were tested.
“The results show that the typical daily volume of the South African payments system could be processed in less than two hours, with full confidentiality of transactions and settlement finality,” the Sarb said in the statement.
“Transactions were processed within two seconds, across a network of geographically distributed nodes, with distributed consensus providing the requisite resilience. The bank was able to view the detail of all the transactions to allow for regulatory oversight.”
-additional reporting by TechCentral
OGONE TLHAGE
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