CULedger Teams With Hedera To Build Global Ledger For Cross Border Payments

Announcements, Blockchain | May 2, 2018 By:

Credit union industry blockchain initiative CULedger has partnered with blockchain startup Hedera to develop a global ledger for cross-border payments.

CULedger is a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) that focuses on delivering innovative applications on a global distributed ledger platform for credit unions. In working through a national consortium of thirteen credit unions and trusted industry investors, CULedger is developing a global self-sovereign digital identity that will further enhance the trust credit unions have with their members.

The Hedera hashgraph platform provides a new form of distributed consensus, a way for people who don’t know or trust each other to securely collaborate and transact online without the need for a trusted intermediary. Hedera enables and empowers developers to build an entirely new class of distributed applications.

Under the partnership, CULedger will use Hedera’s hashgraph platform and public ledger to build a comprehensive system for identity and global payments, which will work in conjunction with CULedger’s MyCUID blockchain digital identity offering. The companies claim that the new service will help reduce the cost and complexity of making cross-border payments.

Rick Cranston, COO of CULedger, said currently, cross-border payments are painful for all parties involved. He said they take time, they’re expensive, and there is limited visibility into the transaction.

“Hashgraph is fast and it provides visibility between the two parties at a significantly lower cost,” said Cranston. “It also eliminates concerns regarding fraud and default, since transactions are recorded immutably on the public ledger, and manual processes, since transactions are automated via smart contracts. Equally important for us was that any distributed ledger we build on must provide stability, so that we, our application developers, and our credit unions can feel confident in the long-term support and community of the distributed ledger we use. This made Hedera the only choice for us.”

In February of this year, CULedger partnered with blockchain identity startup Evernym to develop MyCUID. The blockchain digital identity solution enables credit union members to confidently protect themselves from financial fraud and identity theft.