Lithuania’s Central Bank Opts Leading Entities IBM and Tieto For LBChain Development

Serving as Lithuania’s Central Bank, the Bank of Lithuania has picked up IBM Poland and Teito Lithuania to work for the final stage development of its blockchain network, LBChain. The two entities will be working separately on their individual models and the bank will announce the winner after the final testing round. The winner of the bid will be given the golden opportunity to curate the final solution for the banking giant.

The final testing session will show which solution is most suitable for market needs. We believe that the greatest advantage of LBChain is its versatility. We strive to create a platform that would not only serve for testing products or services that are already offered on the market but would also be used to create those that might currently exist only in a financial architect’s mind. It basically means that you can start your product from scratch and use LBChain to develop it into a market-ready solution,

stated Andrius Adamonis, the LBChain Project Manager at the Bank of Lithuania.

Both the competing firms, IBM and Tieto, are globally reputed software companies, which makes the competition extremely intense yet interesting. Deloitte was the third name in the previous phase of the bid. However, it failed to grab a place in the top two positions. The two top-scoring firms, IBM and Tieto, will strive to draft out the final phase of the LBChain network, which is a blockchain-oriented sandbox enabling Lithuanian as well as international startup ventures in executing blockchain research, testing, and offering of services to clients.

According to the official announcement by the bank, LBChain is likely to address issues faced by financial innovators. These issues are related to a lack of expertise in areas of rules and regulations. The platform will render consultations by the bank concerning technical, legal, and technological aids by blockchain curators. LBChain, which is built on Hyperledger Fabric and Corda, provides a testing ground for financial products and services along with the adoption of an economical and low-risk solution.

Some of the tested use cases are a KYC initiative for anti-money laundering, cross-border payments, a crowdfunding project, a smart contract for factoring process management, etc.

Earlier, LBChain was given as an example of regulated innovation by the esteemed Bank of International Settlements (BIS). It is also a member of The Global Financial Innovation Network’s (GFIN), which helps in cross-border payments.