Axis Bank issues financial contract on state-backed blockchain platform

India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry developed the SLDE platform for transferring documents using blockchain-based security protocols.

Axis Bank issues financial contract on state-backed blockchain platform

Indian financial service giant Axis Bank issued a financial agreement between two domestic businesses by using a government-backed blockchain platform called Secured Logistics Document Exchange(SLDE)

SLIDE was developed and released on Jul 28, 2021, by India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry to serve as a digital document exchange platform that uses blockchain-based security protocols for data and authentication. 

According to the official declaration, Axis issued a letter of credit, a financial contract that guarantees payment upon conditions, between Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India and Lalit Pipes & Pipes Ltd. With SLDE, the Indian ministry aims to improve transparency in terms of audits, capital requirements, and logistics. Axis Bank president of wholesale banking products Vivek Gupta added:

“This transaction reinforces Axis’ commitment to lead the digitization in Transaction banking space.”

The state-supported blockchain platform also includes a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission calculator that "allows for commodity wise comparison of GHG emissions and total cost of transportation, including their environmental cost, between movement by road and rail."

Source: Axis Bank

Despite the lack of conversations and regulations around cryptocurrencies, the central and state governments in India have taken proactive measures to implement blockchain innovation across different business and development sectors.

The state government of Telangana launched an initiative for early-stage web 2.0 and Web 3 startups and blockchain developers to help build solutions to real-world problems. Rama Devi Lanka, director of emerging technology for the Telangana government, highlighted the government's intent to expedite blockchain implementations across a variety of use cases: 

“Some of the interesting use cases that the state has already piloted in Blockchain include — T-Chits (chit funds in the blockchain), supply chain (seed traceability), e-voting (digital voting platform built using blockchain and AI) and more.”

Read: Indian PM launches blockchain-based degree transfer at a technical institution