Bank of China CIO Says Bank to Increase Investments in Blockchain, Fintech

The commercial, state-run Bank of China, not to be confused with the People’s Bank of China, announced its plans to invest further in fintech innovation, according to local news outlet The Paper August 9.

Citing comments at a press conference on the banking industry, The Paper reports that the Bank of China’s Chief Information Officer (CIO), Liu Qiuwan, has revealed plans to increase the company’s investments in research and development technologies such as blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), and fintech. Investment in the technologies will reportedly be more than 1 percent of the bank’s operating annual income, which in 2017 was 483.7 billion yuan ($70.2 billion).

Qiuwan has also said that in 2018, the Bank of China will complete the construction of three major technological platforms, a cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence platform. He also added that Bank of China has been applying blockchain technology in 12 different projects, “mainly focusing on data sharing, cross-border payment, digital currency, digital bills, etc.” He continues:

“According to the statistics of the global blockchain enterprise patent rankings in 2017, Bank of China has 11 patent applications for blockchain, ranking 20th in the global business and ranking first in the domestic banking industry."

One of the bank’s recent blockchain patents was aimed at “solv[ing] the problem of storage space in new blocks without compromising on traceability and immutability,” as Cointelegraph reported back in February.