IBM Amps Its Blockchain Creds With New Supply Chain Platform

It looks like IBM can’t help but blaze trails these days. Here’s CoinDesk on the juggernaut’s new China blockchain offering:

IBM advanced its status as a blockchain leader Tuesday with the launch of a supply chain platform designed to streamline flows among buyers, sellers and financiers in the pharmaceuticals space.

The Yijian Blockchain Technology Application System – built in a partnership between IBM and Hejia, a Chinese supply chain management company – seeks to eliminate some of the financing problems faced by the country’s pharmaceutical retailers. Specifically, it targets the country’s underdeveloped credit evaluation system, which it argues can make it difficult to raise short-term working capital.

The system is designed to slash the time small pharma retailers would get paid by tracing the drugs, encrypting trading records, and simplifying transaction authentication. As such, it also brings greater transparency into the process, a plus, as you can imagine, against potentially murky multi-party deals. Here’s what Ramesh Gopinath, vice president of Blockchain Solutions at IBM, told CoinDesk:

“Blockchain is perfect for the kind of flow that happens between three parties. It’s not a random thing, we see a pattern of this appearing again and again.”

The system will initially be tested by one pharmaceutical retailer, one hospital, and one bank. If everything goes as planned, IBM and Hejia plan to expand the system’s network, ultimately seeing use beyond China’s pharmaceutical sector.

Fintech startups! Have your product adopted by a global financial player!

Citi HK FinTech Challenge 2017 is a competition to encourage developers and FinTech companies from aorund the world to develop innovative solutions with Citi’s APIs to enhance the banking experience and solve business pain points. Through the Challenge, Citibank aims to arouse public interest on FinTech development while accelerating its use in the financial services industry and at the same time benefiting the general public by bringing more innovative solutions to the market.

Find out more here!

Photo: Cory Denton