Royal Bank of Scotland builds Ethereum-based distributed clearing house

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) announced that its Innovation Engineering team has built a distributed clearing and settlement mechanism, based on Ethereum, to remove inefficiency from the patchwork system of cross-border payments.

The new system, known as the RBS Emerald system, can significantly reduce wait times. Approximately 100 payments will enter the system every second, and most transactions will be completed in under 25 seconds.

“In the Emerald use case we were trying to create distributed clearing house where there is no central counterparty that you are working to. Where there is a central bank such as the Bank of England or the European Central Bank, I would absolutely question anybody suggesting that you need a blockchain,” said Richard Crook, head of Innovation Engineering at RBS.

Emerald does not presently boast a go-live date, though the system is slated to make the problems and issues of remittance payments a thing of the past, and senders can rest assured knowing the funds they deliver will be received almost instantaneously.

The Royal Bank of Scotland is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, together with NatWest and Ulster Bank.