Raiffeisen Bank Bringing Blockchain Interoperability to Its Stablecoin Project

Austria-headquartered Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is turning to technology that will allow its tokenized fiat currency to connect to multiple blockchains.

• The initiative will see the bank's RBI Coin integrated with the Pantos blockchain interoperability tool from Vienna-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitpanda, according to a press release on Thursday.
• Unveiled in May, RBI Coin is a tokenized version of national currency, often called stablecoins, aimed to facilitate more reliable and near-instant payments between banks and businesses.
• Currently a pilot project, the bank partnered with Polish-British fintech firm Billon to use its distributed ledger technology for the e-money solution.
• Bitpanda said Pantos comes as the result of over 2.5 years research with the ​Technical University of Vienna, and is designed to allow token projects to avoid being restricted to any one blockchain.
• Raiffeisen will deploy the tech as a proof-of-concept trial initially, allowing the banking industry to become "technology-agnostic in the field of fast-changing blockchain technologies," according to the announcement.
• "The Pantos technology plays an integral role in making the tokenization of assets a reality within our banking group by bringing in the interoperability aspect thus allowing for even more extensive and flexible use cases for banking customers,” said Christian Wolf, head of Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystems at Raiffeisen Bank International.

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