TCS floats blockchain based bank guarantee platform in Israel, signs on Bank Hapoalim

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Tuesday said it has launched a blockchain-based digital bank guarantee platform in Israel, and signed on Bank Hapoalim as its anchor client.

Bank Hapaolim is Israel’s largest bank managing over 30% of the total bank guarantees in the country, as per TCS’ announcement of the launch.

Part of TCS’ Banking Services Bureau (BSB) for digital banks in Israel, the platform functions as a marketplace where both issuers and beneficiaries can manage their digital guarantees portfolio, including issuance, extension, and cancellation.

The platform’s use of hyper-automation will help banks improve speed of execution, reduce fraud and manual errors, and enhance transparency, security, and data privacy, the statement said.

“With this solution, we will be extending our client base to include corporates, SMEs and individuals who will soon be able to access their digital bank guarantees across its life cycle through APIs and an intuitive web portal,” Bank Hapoalim CEO Dov Kotler said.

The Microsoft Azure-run platform is powered by TCS’ Quartz Blockchain solution.

Quartz as an end-to-end solution will serve as a blockchain ecosystem that can support additional use cases over time, not only in the region but also globally, TCS said.

In April 2020, TCS entered into a partnership with the country’s finance ministry to build the government’s BSB, which would work as a shared, plug-and-play and digital operations platform that would help startup banks to launch operations faster.

Following the partnership, TCS had also signed up to power the first fully digital bank in Israel with its core banking software suite BaNCS.

“This project, delivered through our Banking Services Bureau, is the first of many such ecosystems that we will be participating in globally, for digital financial documents,” TCS COO Ganapathy Subramaniam said.

Quartz, a startup incubated by TCS, provides foundational technology, tools and business components for creating distributed ledger solutions across varied industries. It enables existing systems to coexist and integrate with blockchain platforms and other messaging networks.