Wells Fargo to Develop Own Crypto to Handle Internal Financial Transactions

American multinational banking and financial services giant, Wells Fargo, published a press release on Tuesday the 17^th of September, stating that it will develop an internal settlement service using a cryptocurrency which will be deployed on the institution’s own blockchain network. Dubbed Wells Fargo Digital Cash, the digital asset is expected to help facilitate internal payments across all of its branches all over the world, regardless of location.

The press release explains the need for the institution to get on the distributed ledger technology (DLT) train, so as to achieve a “permanent, highly secure and trusted record of transactions.” The bank also hopes that the new initiative will significantly reduce transfer time and also make the transactions a lot more cost-effective.

Lisa Frazier, Wells Fargo’s Head of Innovation Group, has suggested that the new platform will not only meet ever-expanding business demands, but will also keep the bank at par with the growing tech space:

“We believe DLT holds promise for a variety of use cases, and we’re energized to take this significant step in applying the technology to banking in a material and scalable way. Wells Fargo Digital Cash has the potential to enable Wells Fargo to remove barriers to real-time financial interactions across multiple accounts in multiple marketplaces around the world.”

The new system is expected to be ready sometime in 2020 but no specific date was revealed. Furthermore, the Wells Fargo DLT network will first handle transfers in USD and will support other currencies much later. This isn’t Wells Fargo’s first use of blockchain and it is now one of many banks who use blockchain for various endeavours.

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