Bank of America seeks to protect system for wire transfers using cryptocurrency

The US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) has released a patent filed by the Bank of America that seeks to protect a system for wire transfers using cryptocurrency technology.

The patent, filed on 17th March, 2014, seeks to protect a system by which electronic funds could be sent between customer accounts using the underlying blockchain of a given cryptocurrency as the rails for payment.

Thomas Edward Durbin and James Gregory Ronca of USPTO wrote, “Enterprises handle a large number of foreign wire transfer requests on a daily basis. As technology advances, foreign transactions have become more common. For some customers, it may be desirable to conduct a foreign wire transfer in less time than what current foreign wire transfer systems allow.”

The authors suggest that such a system would be designed to “bypass” traditional wire transfer services, “reducing dependency on third-party networks” and “increasing the reliability of fund transfers”.

It suggests that fund transfers using cryptocurrency would reduce the need to transfer customer information to a “third-party system”, thereby “increasing control and security of customer data” during such transactions.

Bank of America did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bank of America is an American multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.