Axis Bank issues financial contract on state-backed blockchain platform

India’s Ministry of Commerce & Industry developed the SLDE platform for transferring documents using blockchain-based security protocols.

Indian financial services giant Axis Bank issued a financial contract between two domestic businesses by using a government-backed blockchain platform called Secured Logistics Document Exchange (SLDE).

SLDE was developed and released on Jul. 28, 2021, by India’s Ministry of Commerce & Industry to serve as a digital document exchange platform that uses blockchain-based security protocols for data security and authentication.

According to the official announcement, Axis issued a letter of credit, a financial contract that guarantees payment upon conditions, between Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India and Lalit Pipes & Pipes Ltd. With SLDE, the Indian ministry aims to improve transparency in terms of audits, capital requirements and logistics. Axis Bank’s president of wholesale banking products, Vivek Gupta, added:

“This transaction reinforces Axis’ commitment to lead the digitization in Transaction banking space.”

The state-backed blockchain platform also includes a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission calculator that “allows for commodity-wise comparison of GHG emissions and total cost of transportation, including their environmental cost, between movement by road and rail.”

Official poster with Ethereum logo. Source: Axis Bank.

The above image, originally shared by Axis Bank for the occasion, shows the logo of Ethereum (ETH) — strengthening the bank’s commitment to blockchain acceptance.

Despite the lack of discussions and regulations around cryptocurrencies, the central and state governments in India have taken proactive measures to implement blockchain technology across various business and development sectors.

At the end of last year, the state government of Telangana launched an initiative for early-stage Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 startups and blockchain developers to help build solutions to real-world problems. Speaking to Cointelegraph, the Government of Telangana’s director of emerging technology, Rama Devi Lanka, highlighted the government’s intent to expedite blockchain implementations across a variety of use cases:

“Some of the interesting use cases that the state has already piloted in Blockchain include — T-Chits (chit funds in blockchain), supply chain (seed traceability), e-voting (digital voting platform built using blockchain and AI) and more.”