IBM will launch a large-scale commercial blockchain project, and the efficiency of transaction dispute resolution will be improved several times

Big Blue IBM expects to launch one of the largest commercial applications of blockchain, the online ledger that underpins bitcoin, as early as September.

The blockchain solution will help its financial sector resolve disputes between clients and partners, and could send a signal to blockchain companies and the market for their technology that have already seen huge investments. The move will also make IBM one of the largest organizations to date to promote the emerging technology of blockchain to enable real-world business transactions.

The system is expected to free up a portion of the money that IBM's global financial divisions have at any given time in transaction disputes, according to Jerry Cuomo, vice president of IBM blockchain technology. Blockchain has been touted as a way to make many markets and functions more efficient by removing middlemen.

It is reported that IBM's financial business unit has 4,000 suppliers, financial customers, and partners, who conduct approximately 3 million transactions each year, worth approximately $44 billion. Cuomo said that each year, the business unit has as many as 25,000 disputes due to errors in number sequence and other reasons.

(IBM blockchain application screenshot)

Today, it takes IBM an average of 44 days to resolve such a problem, and requires its employees to retrace six or seven separate application steps, sometimes contacting banks and other parties involved, Cuomo said. Recording these transactions in a blockchain ledger will make it possible to record transaction details faster and more accurately than existing processes. The new system has been used in parallel with IBM's existing financial applications, using custom code to collect key data in transactions, such as when an order is completed and when a payment is made.

In tests over the past few months, IBM has cut problem resolution time to 10 days, Cuomo said.