Swiss crypto bank AMINA Bank and Deutsche Börse’s Crypto Finance Group said Wednesday they have completed a pilot on Google Cloud’s Universal Ledger platform to settle fiat currency payments in real time between Swiss banks.
The pilot, which ran with other unnamed banking partners, allowed around-the-clock settlement of payments across institutions while preserving compliance with Swiss financial standards. Crypto Finance served as the designated Currency Operator, onboarding banks and enforcing transaction rules. AMINA embedded the system into its core banking platform, offering instant payments to select clients with no changes to front-end operations.
The test’s goal was to demonstrate how distributed ledger technology (DLT) can upgrade traditional financial infrastructure without requiring new forms of digital money or overhauling current regulations, the firms said in a press release.
The test comes as financial institutions around the world explore blockchain rails to improve the speed, cost and transparency of cross-border payments and settlement. These efforts focus less on cryptocurrency and more on retooling back-end infrastructure using blockchain to move money and assets faster and more securely.
Google’s Universal Ledger is a cloud-native system designed for real-time settlement of traditional assets using distributed ledger infrastructure. It allows banks to operate within existing legal and regulatory frameworks while offering faster services.
The project follows Google Cloud’s partnership with derivatives giant CME Group, which included a $1 billion investment to move CME’s trading systems to the cloud. That collaboration laid early groundwork for Google’s push into financial infrastructure, including blockchain-based solutions aimed at institutional clients.
The next phase of the pilot will involve onboarding more financial institutions, moving from testing to live operations, and expanding into consumer-facing use cases like point-of-sale and international payments.
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