The Digital Transformation of Finance In Asia Expands – How ADB & Bianjie Change Banking

Asia Digital Bank (ADB) has announced a strategic partnership with Bianjie, a partner to the Chinese government’s Blockchain-based Service Network and core development team behind IRISnet. ADB, with the assistance of Bianjie, are building a new digital financial infrastructure that supports seamless integration of centralized and decentralized financial services.  Powered by Cosmos’ scalable, interoperable blockchain stack that Bianjie operates, ADB’s firms and individual users will be able to manage both centralized bank accounts as well as accounts on open distributed ledgers connected through Cosmos/IRISnet Hubs. 

The partnership between Asia Digital Bank and Bianjie was positively announced by Andy Liu, Chairman of ADB, who voiced that the technical cooperation would expedite the current generation of digital banking system development. ‘With Bianjie’s support, we believe through the adoption of advanced enterprises-oriented Cosmos-based blockchain stacks, we can support innovative financial services that will generate lasting impacts for ASEAN, China, the Islamic financial market, and the whole world in building an inclusive financial ecosystem.’ The partnership is extremely commendable for how it seeks to create generational change across geographic boundaries, typifying the expansive nature of blockchain, as well as promising Fintech ventures that are consistently being birthed out of Asia, a hub for technological creativity at the moment.

Harriet Cao, Co-Founder of Bianjie, gave insightful comments regarding the current financial and technological context that had influenced this partnership. Cao says ‘Blockchain technology, by allowing assets being digitized and safely transferred along the globe without a central party, is causing major disruptions to financial services. However, it is quite difficult for regulatory authorities to supervise DeFi supported by public blockchains, hence making an institutional adoption increasingly difficult.’

It seems clear then that ADB and Bianjie are trying to strengthen their services, and that the ultimate vision behind this blockchain-empowered digital banking system is to provide more secure, cost-effective, transparent, and lawful financial services for both consumers and enterprise and users around the globe.

Bianjie continues to expand Cosmos’ footprint into the enterprise blockchain space through building the Cosmos-SDK-based IRITA consortium blockchain framework. IRITA  will be used to build this Asia DB initiated open permissioned blockchain (OPB) to connect its banking business partners and other ecological service collaborators from different countries. This OPB  will support legal-friendly stablecoin issuing, digital assets escorting and asset-based securities issuing, and cross-border payments for legitimate global commerce.

Cao went on to further comment on the key opportunities of the partnership, particularly regarding creating an inclusive financial ecosystem thanks to the importance of interchain technology in this blockchain-based system. ‘Interchain infrastructure Cosmos/IRISnet will be used to facilitate the interoperability among OPB and other open blockchains, including Ethereum. Thanks to this system, SMEs and individual users will easily control their own accounts, manage their own assets with adequate privacy protection, and enjoy several financial services through a new digital wallet that interacts with the back-end traditional banking ledger system as well as with open distributed ledger systems.’ The inclusive nature of the project shows just how fruitful this venture has the potential to be, making finance more accessible, understandable and efficient for all.