Spanish BBVA Is The First Bank That Issued A Loan Using Blockchain

A loan using blockchain has been issued in Spain – by the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria – also known as BBVA. With this, the bank became the first global one that issued a loan using the blockchain technology.

According to the FT report published this April 25th, the Spanish bank announced that it conducted the entire loan process – from the negotiation of terms to the signing of the detailed loan progress.

Everything was done smoothly using blockchain technology, which cut the negotiation time for the €75 million loan. Blockchain helped in cutting the time from “days to hours” as BBVA stated, in a process of “significant advance in the exploitation of the distributed ledger technology”.

The CEO of BBVA, Carlos Torres Villa, also said that the bank is planning “several more transactions soon” and that they would launch a pilot program with Spanish telecom corporation named Indra. The company (Indra) has described itself as “at the vanguard” for various blockchain applications.

Torres Vila was also confident about the future of blockchain in the corporate and syndicate loan industry (as they are more complex than customer landing). He stated the following:

“Blockchain can offer clear advantages for all sides in the corporate loan market in terms of efficiency, transparency, [and] security… It’s another strong example of how disruptive technology can be used to add value to financial services, something that is central to our strategy.”

The pilot project by BBVA will use a private blockchain for negotiating and completing the loan process. After that, it will be registered and completed on the Ethereum public blockchain. Meanwhile, BBVA is about to launch blockchain applications for international trade, international lending as well as foreign exchange.

As such, the bank is one of the most progressive ones in terms of this technology, working to develop and adopt the blockchain in more and more fields of its operation.