CBA builds a blockchain in its innovation labIn its Innovation Lab in Darling Harbour, a team of Commonwealth Bank of Australia computer engineers have built a working "blockchain". For CBA, a "distributed ledger" is no longer a concept on a whiteboard, but a matter of hardware.
This week, CBA customers, regulators and bank employees will be able to see for themselves how the buzziest topic in global finance – blockchain, the technology underpinning the cryptocurrency bitcoin – works in practice.
CBA has put together five 1-gigabyte computer boxes and loaded them up with ledgers and keys. It took CBA's internal IT team two weeks to do the coding. Each of the five computers represents a "node" in the dummy blockchain. It is each of these computers – rather than a trusted central party – that will validate transactions. CBA reckons the technology can be applied to a vast array of banking operations to slash costs, from international payments to trade finance.
This week, CBA and the Coalition of Automated Legal Applications (COALA), a group of cryptography academics, are holding a week-long conference in Sydney. COALA will meet in closed sessions on Monday and Tuesday; Thursday and Friday are open to the public. On Wednesday, regulators will meet in private to discuss the concept.
http://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/cba-builds-a-blockchain-in-its-innovation-lab-20151206-glgj6y
