ClearBlade Integrates IBM Edge Application Manager to Deliver IoT Asset Monitoring at the Edge

ClearBlade helps enterprises in asset-intensive industries monitor thousands of assets at the Edge

Austin, Texas; October 30, 2020: ClearBlade, an industrial IoT platform and edge computing software company, today announced it plans to collaborate with IBM to deliver Edge IoT asset monitoring for near-real time asset management. The ClearBlade Edge Asset Monitor solution integrated with IBM Edge Application Manager, which runs on Red Hat OpenShift, offers a secured out-of-the-box bundle for managing containerized edge-based applications on any hardware.

ClearBlade Edge Asset Monitor is highly configurable with no coding required. Combined with IBM Edge Application Manager, it can offer a seamless and automated deployment of edge applications to available enterprise edge compute. The solution will also be integrated with IBM Maximo to collect near-real time data into enterprise asset management and analyzed with artificial intelligence at the edge, powered by IBM Watson. This can allow for a single system of record in the enterprise that is enriched with quality data and can be acted on with intelligent automation.

“Edge IoT Asset Monitoring provides tremendous value for the rugged demands of industries like rail, aerospace, mining, and agriculture. This combination provides an unparalleled digital capability for understanding how assets are used, where they are, where they have been, how they are maintained, and how they are utilized,” said Eric Simone, CEO of ClearBlade. “By integrating our industry-leading solution with IBM Edge Application Manager, we can help companies better understand how their businesses are executing and how they can be optimized.”

ClearBlade’s Edge IoT Asset Monitoring solution provides flexibility for thousands of assets to be tracked across aerospace, mining, railroad, construction, shipping, and logistics industries. ClearBlade supports non-powered, fleet tracking, and open environment use cases with a no-coding required interface. ClearBlade provides broad enterprise digitalization strategies as application logic is seamlessly streamed and processed from both the edge and the cloud.

“We look forward to collaborating with ClearBlade as part of the IBM Edge Ecosystem,” said Evaristus Mainsah, General Manager, Cloud, Cloud Pak and Edge Ecosystem, IBM. “Together, we can help customers in asset-intensive industries further accelerate their digital transformation by enabling them to act on insights closer to where the data is being created, at the edge.”

ClearBlade is joining IBM’s edge ecosystem, an initiative designed to help equipment manufacturers, networking, IT & software providers implement open standards-based cloud-native solutions that can autonomously manage edge applications at scale. IBM’s ecosystem of partners fuels hybrid cloud environments by helping clients modernize workloads from bare-metal to multicloud and everything in between with Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform.

IBM Study: AI-driven Virtual Agents Can Drive Customer Satisfaction and Cost Savings Amid COVID-19

Organizations like Burger King Brazil, Medtronic and The Royal Marsden are gaining value from virtual agents implemented in partnership with IBM

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 28, 2020 — As many organizations across the world look to digital tools to help address surges in customer inquiries due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a new IBM study revealed 99% of respondents report an increase in customer satisfaction as a result of using AI-driven virtual agent technology.

The research showed organizations that are early adopters of AI and cloud technology are reaping significant benefits from AI-driven virtual agents. 94 percent of respondents defined as “leaders” – those who implemented AI-driven virtual agents early, integrated them with backend systems and trained them with many contacts – have already achieved or exceeded their expected return on investment, compared to 49 percent of others.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations are balancing the need to rapidly scale customer service to manage surges in inquiries, while still delivering a delightful customer experience – and doing it all for less,” said Glenn Finch, global managing partner, Cognitive Business Decision Support, IBM Services. “The study validates what we’re seeing from clients around the world: those who have adopted virtual agent technology are seeing both bottom-line and top-line results including reduced costs, higher customer and human agent satisfaction, and increased revenue as a result.”

IBM is working with many clients across industries to use AI to put critical data and information into the hands of their customers and employees with AI-driven virtual agent technology, including Burger King Brazil, Medtronic and The Royal Marsden. An IBM-commissioned Forrester Consulting TEI study found a large organization could achieve an average cost savings of USD 5.50 per contained conversation using IBM Watson Assistant.

The IBM Institute for Business Value study, titled “The value of virtual agent technology,” surveyed more than 1,000 companies, spanning 12 industries and 33 countries, that have used virtual agents for just six months to over four years.

Additional study findings include:

  • 44% of “leaders” reported having fully integrated cloud strategies for their service desk systems, compared to 19 percent of others
  • 20% is the average contribution to human agent satisfaction attributed to virtual agent technology by responding organizations.
  • Organizations using virtual agents reported a 64% average containment rate – the portion of total contacts the virtual agent technology has been trained to handle that it resolves without human agent involvement.
  • For 46 percent of “leaders” in virtual agent technology, and 33 percent of other respondents, customer experience is the most important driver of virtual agent use.
  • Every respondent reported that virtual agent technology has contributed to an increase in organization revenue, the average increase being 3 percent

IBM Unveils New Capabilities for Preserving Aging Infrastructure Using AI, 3D Modeling and Data Capture

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure is designed to assist organizations like Sund and Baelt in better managing, monitoring and maintaining their infrastructure assets.

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 23, 2020 — IBM today announced new capabilities in IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure to help prolong the lifespan of aging bridges, tunnels, highways, and railways. New enhancements include the ability to deploy on Red Hat OpenShift for hybrid cloud environments, as well as new AI and 3D model annotation tools that can provide deep industry and task-specific insights to support engineers.

In the United States roughly $2 trillion in infrastructure repairs were unfunded in 2015, according to the 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure Report Card. And around the world, the prevalence of aging infrastructure threatens the continuity of day-to-day life for citizens worldwide. Owners, operators and engineers need to be able to improve their ability to decide where, when and how to address infrastructure issues with critical assets that must endure for generations.

Why-Smarter-Roads-Bridges-and-Tunnels-are-Good-for-Economies-and-Societies

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure can consolidate numerous sources of data including maintenance and design details; near real-time IoT data generated from sensors; wearables; stationary cameras, drones and weather data from The Weather Company. This data can help operators assess the impact of damage such as cracks, rust and corrosion, as well as displacement vibrations and stress. By better managing and prioritizing infrastructure repair, organizations can work to reduce the need for time-intensive manual inspections and unnecessary costs.

“Tools like AI, predictive maintenance, drones and hybrid cloud will play an important role in meeting the challenge of rising infrastructure costs, and helping these vital structures endure for future generations,” said Bjarne Jørgensen, Executive Director, Asset Management at Sund and Baelt. “These solutions can help determine the exact need for maintenance in near real-time to assist organizations in extending the lifetime of structures.”

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure allows civil engineers to make structures come alive using 3D modeling and AI visual recognition tools developed by IBM Research. Additional capabilities like Maximo Visual Inspection can make it easier to identify defects, their root-cause, and place them in the context of the greater structure. These tools that allow for more rapid assessments can be increasingly important for future engineers as skills availability may be a challenge.

“Infrastructure maintenance is a problem that’s being compounded from all sides: Bridges are getting older, payloads are getting larger, and the necessary preventive actions and maintenance are often postponed due to lack of funding,” Jørgensen added. “With Maximo for Civil Infrastructure, IBM is introducing a solution that addresses the problem from all sides, using IoT and AI technology to administer more proactive repairs, maintain invaluable institutional and engineering knowledge, and better prioritize resources.”

“Maximo for Civil Infrastructure was developed with input from some of the largest operators of infrastructure in the world so that IBM’s powerful technology across AI and IoT is carefully adapted to the unique needs of civil engineers,” said Joe Berti, VP of AI Applications at IBM. “With these tools we believe civil engineers will be able to innovate and improve the methods for monitoring, maintaining and preserving important structures around the world.”

IBM Maximo for Civil Infrastructure provides the following new capabilities, in addition to the core offerings available as part of the IBM Maximo Application Suite.

IBM Drives Capabilities for Clients to Run Business-Critical SAP® Software Workloads on Hybrid Cloud

Coca-Cola European Partners, Cementos Pacasmayo, Primadonna Collection adopt IBM Cloud to run SAP® software workloads in a secured and open environment
SAP and IBM grow ecosystem of GSIs and ISVs including Syniti, TCS, Tech Mahindra

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 21, 2020 — IBM today announced new services, partnerships and capabilities designed to help clients accelerate their hybrid cloud journeys and deploy and run SAP® software workloads wherever they choose – from the IBM public cloud to on-premises. These new offerings expand on IBM and SAP’s global alliance partnership to help clients optimize their SAP software workloads.

Global clients across industries are choosing to run their SAP software workloads on IBM Cloud, including Peruvian construction company Cementos Pacasmayo, Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler based on revenue, and Italian fashion footwear retailer Primadonna Collection. Reinforcing IBM’s commitment to investing in a hybrid cloud ecosystem, IBM and SAP are also expanding their ecosystem of GSI and ISV partners, to include Syniti, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tech Mahindra and others, to help simplify and speed how clients run their SAP software workloads on IBM Cloud.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, enterprises around the world are looking to modernize their operations. According to a recent IBM IBV study, 64 percent of executives surveyed now plan to shift to a more cloud-based business model over the next two years. With this acceleration comes the need for deploying complex enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business process workloads in a way that provides clients with the industry’s highest levels of security.1

“The global pandemic has seen a year’s worth of digital transformation efforts with the acceleration of cloud adoption compressed into months,” said Harish Grama, general manager, public cloud, IBM. “Clients across industries are looking to shift to cloud and this is the core focus of our collaboration with SAP – giving our clients the ability to embrace the benefits of cloud without compromising on security and controls. This is all done through an open hybrid cloud architecture so our clients have a choice in how they approach their digital transformation, guided by the industry expertise needed to be successful in their journey.”

Clients globally choose hybrid deployments to run SAP software workloads:

Clients working to deploy their SAP software workloads to IBM Cloud include:

  • Peruvian construction company Cementos Pacasmayo, who deployed its SAP S/4HANA suite to IBM public cloud as it sought to expand beyond construction sales to value-added services, which allowed it to handle the additional ERP complexity that came with its new business line.
  • Coca-Cola European Partners, who is deploying several large SAP software workloads — including the SAP ERP application and the SAP BW/4 HANA® solution — as part of its hybrid transformation. The work is designed to help CCEP deliver higher levels of service to its customers by leveraging advanced analytics while retaining a reliable infrastructure.
  • Italian footwear retailer Primadonna Collection, who deployed its IT infrastructure to a certified SAP software environment on IBM public cloud for VMware to improve manageability and performance. This is designed to help Primadonna Collection modernize its business-critical processes, such as sales and customer care, as it looks to expand its global footprint.

IBM launches new partnerships, services, and capabilities to support SAP software deployments:

New partnerships, services and capabilities are designed to make it easier for businesses to deploy their SAP applications to IBM public cloud – or another environment of their choice.

  • Expansion of partner ecosystem: To help clients more quickly and easily deploy SAP technologies in the cloud, IBM is expanding its SAP ecosystem of GSI and ISV partners with the addition of Syniti, TCS, BlueIT, H.T. High Technology, and Tech Mahindra. Syniti’s Knowledge Platform™ Cloud Edition on IBM Cloud is helping speed project times by up to 46 percent for clients deploying complex datasets to SAP S/4HANA. SAP also sells the SAP Advanced Data Migration application by Syniti, with a cloud edition delivered on IBM Cloud. Syniti is an SAP partner offering solution extensions to SAP software. IBM and TCS are engaging in joint go-to-market initiatives focused on accelerating cloud transformation journeys with TCS industry solutions and extensions for large enterprises.
  • New offerings through IBM Services: To help ease and speed clients’ cloud deployment processes, services including IBM Rapid Move for SAP by IBM, are powered by IBM Cloud to help clients deploy to SAP S/4HANA. The services are bundled to include access to IBM Services, IBM Cloud and IBM Global Financing. IBM Services offers clients a hybrid option to allow customers to selectively deploy applications to the new cloud-based platform.
  • New SAP certifications: IBM recently acquired several new SAP certifications – adding to its portfolio of more than 100 solutions tested and certified by SAP — to allow customers more choices around where and how to run their SAP software workloads. These will allow clients running SAP software workloads on an IBM infrastructure to access SAP applications in an optimized, quality-controlled way. The new certifications include:
    • IBM Power Systems Virtual Server – helps customers modernize their SAP software workloads with the option to run them in a virtualized infrastructure hosted in IBM data centers. With this certification, IBM can run applications based on SAP HANA® or the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform within its virtual server stack. IBM Power Systems Virtual Server is a private infrastructure-as-a-service offering with access to the full catalog of IBM Cloud offerings.
    • 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor-based servers on virtual private cloud — enterprises can grow business value with faster data insights from SAP certified instances on IBM Cloud with Intel technologies.
    • NetApp certified storage for SAP workloads – gives clients running large and highly complex enterprise workloads access to ultra-high performance storage. IBM is now offering up to 180,000 IOPS of NetApp-based storage in the cloud – previously available only on-premises – to deliver high levels of performance, resilience and reliability.

As part of their global alliance partnership, IBM and SAP have worked with hundreds of clients across the globe on more than 5,500 individual projects to modernize their systems and business processes based on an open, hybrid cloud approach. IBM brings deep industry expertise and experience gained from 37,000 SAP-certified professionals, and is one of the most awarded SAP partners, named an SAP Pinnacle Award winner 36 times.

Burger King Brazil Selects IBM Services to Implement AI Strategy to Help Transform Human Resources Processes and Strengthen Employee Relationships

Burger King Brazil virtual assistant named TOP, enabled by IBM Watson, allows employees to access various HR services through their own WhatsApp

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 16, 2020 — IBM Services  and Burger King Brazil have teamed up to create a new virtual assistant, based on IBM Watson Assistant, named TOP (Technology Orienting People) to help Burger King (BK) Brazil’s 16,000 employees, serving more than 800 restaurants, be more connected to each other and its leadership.

New research from the IBM Institute for Business Value indicates that surveyed companies outpacing others in profitability, revenue growth and innovation are also leading practitioners of what the report termed: HR 3.0 principles. HR 3.0 refers to the evolution of the human resources (HR) function, to become one that is more human-centric, better engaging remote employees, and cultivating a resilient workforce with the goal of providing transparency, diversity and inclusion.

IBM-Burger-King-Brazil-TOP

Conducted in partnership with global independent industry analyst Josh Bersin, the global survey of more than 1,500 global HR executives in 20 countries and 15 industries, revealed that leading companies were “extremely confident” in the need to reinvent HR, and that HR executives from those surveyed, were eight times as likely as their counterparts at other companies to be driving innovation.

Before TOP, BK Brazil’s employees used a centralized command system to submit requests for vacations, documents such as payment statements, earnings reports, and other Human Resources related topics. All of these services are now available via a text conversation in natural language, through the employee’s own WhatsApp, with topics that are regularly updated. Today, the virtual assistant is already responsible for 50% of employees’ requests on HR issues, freeing up the team to focus on more strategic goals.

“TOP’s main objective is to be close to our employees and facilitate access to information. And technology plays a major role in enabling this connection, especially at a time when reliability, security and speed are so critical,” said Iuri Miranda, CEO, Burger King Brazil. “We know that the moment demands communication and an agile flow of information and if technology allows us this close contact with the people who are part of the team, we will make the most of it.”

The solution is also designed to enable Burger King Brazil to answer questions from employees and give the necessary guidance on the company’s strategy as it navigates the COVID-19 pandemic. In a joint effort with IBM, updates are made to the tool to help provide official updated content from the Ministry of Health. The tool also helped the company make content available for more than 30 responses to FAQs, such as guidance on PPE’s (personal protective equipment), risk groups and driving to use spaces, among others.

TOP recognizes each employee by their telephone number and registered ID in the company’s system to protect confidentiality and thus helps them to answer questions about vacations, earnings reports, among 60 other Human Resources matters. Today, this virtual assistant has become an agile tool in assisting company employees, accounting for 50% of calls. A hybrid and multicloud cloud architecture, accessing IBM Cloud in the BK Brazil IT environment, helps with the exchange of information to respond in near real time.

“Burger King Brazil is a great example of an organization on their journey to HR 3.0. The company has combined its journey of digital transformation with its people management strategy to be more connected and help respond more effectively to the needs of its team,” said Amy Wright, managing partner, Talent & Transformation, IBM Services. “People are the heart of any organization and with new AI-enabled digital tools, the HR 3.0 mindset can be critical to our ongoing development of a more productive and rewarding world of work.”

By placing technology as an ally for people, Burger King Brazil can establish the path to continue reinventing itself, growing and offering a relevant experience to employees in parallel with the transformation of the company.

IBM To Accelerate Hybrid Cloud Growth Strategy And Execute Spin-Off Of Market-Leading Managed Infrastructure Services Unit

– IBM to focus on hybrid cloud growth, a $1 trillion market opportunity
– New public company to launch as world’s #1 Managed Infrastructure Services provider
– IBM also announces preliminary 2020 third-quarter results

ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 8, 2020 — IBM announced today it will accelerate its hybrid cloud growth strategy to drive digital transformations for its clients. Additionally, IBM will separate its Managed Infrastructure Services unit of its Global Technology Services division into a new public company (“NewCo”). This creates two industry-leading companies, each with strategic focus and flexibility to drive client and shareholder value.

The separation is expected to be achieved as a tax-free spin-off to IBM shareholders, and completed by the end of 2021.

“IBM is laser-focused on the $1 trillion hybrid cloud opportunity,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM Chief Executive Officer. “Client buying needs for application and infrastructure services are diverging, while adoption of our hybrid cloud platform is accelerating. Now is the right time to create two market-leading companies focused on what they do best. IBM will focus on its open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities. NewCo will have greater agility to design, run and modernize the infrastructure of the world’s most important organizations. Both companies will be on an improved growth trajectory with greater ability to partner and capture new opportunities – creating value for clients and shareholders.”

“We have positioned IBM for the new era of hybrid cloud,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM Executive Chairman. “Our multi-year transformation created the foundation for the open hybrid cloud platform, which we then accelerated with the acquisition of Red Hat. At the same time, our managed infrastructure services business has established itself as the industry leader, with unrivaled expertise in complex and mission-critical infrastructure work. As two independent companies, IBM and NewCo will capitalize on their respective strengths. IBM will accelerate clients’ digital transformation journeys, and NewCo will accelerate clients’ infrastructure modernization efforts. This focus will result in greater value, increased innovation, and faster execution for our clients.”

IBM, a Leading Hybrid Cloud and AI Company

IBM will focus on its open hybrid cloud platform, which represents a $1 trillion market opportunity. Building on IBM’s hybrid cloud foundation, the company acquired Red Hat to unlock the full value of the cloud for clients, further accelerating adoption of the platform. This platform facilitates the deployment of powerful AI capabilities to enable the power of data, application modernization services, and systems. These are all underpinned by the security, unmatched expertise in industry verticals, and deep commitment to open source innovation that clients expect from IBM.

With tighter integration and focus on its open hybrid cloud and AI solutions, IBM will move from a company with more than half of its revenues in services to one with a majority in high-value cloud software and solutions. IBM will also have more than 50% of its portfolio in recurring revenues.

IBM’s open hybrid cloud platform architecture, based on RedHat OpenShift, works with the entire range of clients’ existing IT infrastructures, regardless of vendor. This platform allows clients to “write-once/run-anywhere,” and enables a hybrid cloud approach that drives up to 2.5 times more value for clients than a public cloud-only solution.

IBM’s unique full-stack capabilities and large ecosystem of partners and ISV’s deliver innovation and enable clients to unlock the full value of the hybrid cloud and their data.

IBM’s software portfolio, focused on data and AI, automation, and security, enables the widest access to innovation through open source.

IBM’s business, strategy and technology consultants help clients transform by modernizing their existing applications, and by building new AI-infused data analysis capabilities on the leading open hybrid cloud platform.

IBM’s secure, mission-critical public cloud is designed to provide all required regulatory controls, and offers clients a foundation of open source software, security leadership, and enterprise-grade infrastructure.

IBM’s Systems business, integrated with the hybrid cloud platform, allows cloud-native developers to capitalize on the unique capabilities of IBM’s hardware. Leveraging its long-term relationships with clients, IBM will continue to drive the innovation in hardware that enterprises rely on for their most mission-critical computing needs.

As part of this strategic acceleration, IBM is taking action to simplify and optimize its operating model for speed and growth. This includes streamlining its geographic model and transforming its go-to-market structure to better engage with and support clients. IBM is also continuing to consolidate its shared services. This simplified and focused operating model will support accelerated innovation for the hybrid cloud, and provide more flexibility to increase investment in growth areas. The result will be an enhanced financial profile with a clear trajectory for improved revenue and profit growth.

NewCo, the Leading Managed Infrastructure Services Company

The new company (to be named at a subsequent date) will immediately be the world’s leading managed infrastructure services provider. It has relationships with more than 4,600 technology-intensive, highly regulated clients in 115 countries, including more than 75% of the Fortune 100, a backlog of $60 billion, and more than twice the scale of its nearest competitor.

The new company will be entirely focused on managing and modernizing client-owned infrastructures, a $500 billion market opportunity. It will leverage its unrivaled expertise to offer hosting and network services, services management, infrastructure modernization, and migrating and managing multi-cloud environments. These are critical services that are core to client operations.

With a streamlined business model, NewCo will create value by helping enterprises optimize their performance through AI and automation. NewCo’s services will enable enterprises to build agility and efficiency into their infrastructure and datacenters. NewCo will be able to better modernize infrastructures for an unparalleled roster of clients in all industries, with relationships that have been built over decades.

NewCo will extend its leadership through increased investment in the next generation of transformational managed infrastructure services, with more opportunity for margin expansion, profit growth and cash generation.

NewCo will also be able to partner fully across all cloud vendors, opening new avenues for growth, while maintaining a strong strategic partnership with IBM and continuing to serve existing and new clients.

Separation Transaction Details

The proposed separation is expected to be effected through a pro-rata spin-off to IBM shareowners that will be tax-free for U.S. federal income tax purposes. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including Form 10 registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, receipt of a tax opinion from counsel, and final approval by IBM’s Board of Directors. The separation is currently expected to be completed by the end of 2021.

Following separation, the companies together are initially expected to pay a combined quarterly dividend that is no less than IBM’s pre-spin dividend per share. Following the completion of the separation, each company’s dividend policy will be determined by its respective Board of Directors.

One-time transaction costs are expected to include tax charges, operational separation activities, and other customary items.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Lazard are serving as financial advisors for the transaction, with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP acting as legal advisor.

Bank of Thailand Launches World’s First Government Savings Bond on IBM Blockchain Technology

$1.6B USD in government savings bonds were successfully sold within a week of launch

BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct. 5, 2020 — SIBOS — IBM today announced that Bank of Thailand (BOT), the central bank, has successfully launched the world’s first blockchain-based platform for government savings bonds issuing a total of $1.6B USD within two weeks.

Leveraging blockchain technology on the highly secured IBM Cloud, the platform allows investors to benefit from speedy bond issuance, reducing a process that previously took 15 days to two days. The efficiency provided by blockchain also reduces operational complexity and the overall cost of issuing bonds.

According to The Thai Bond Market Association, the outstanding Thai bond market stood at $421B USD as of December 2019. Government bonds dominate the Thai market, with outstanding value of $157B USD in 2019 1, accounting for 37% of the total outstanding Thai bond market.

In the past, the sale of government savings bonds was a complex, multiparty, time-consuming process that relied on a non-real-time system, with duplicated validation steps and manual reconciliation prone to data errors.

As blockchain technology streamlines the processes of bond issuance for issuers, underwriters, registrars, investors and key ecosystem participants, the government savings bond platform now becomes an immutable, real-time single source of truth for network participants, which minimizes the redundant validation and reduces the costs of reconciliation. In addition, Thai investors can now purchase bonds up to the maximum value of their individual allocated quota from a single bank.

The effort to develop a secure and efficient government bond infrastructure involved collaboration among eight institutions including BOT, Public Debt Management Office, Thailand Securities Depository Co., Ltd, Thai Bond Market Association and selling-agent banks, including Bangkok Bank, Krungthai Bank, Kasikorn Bank, and Siam Commercial Bank, with IBM Blockchain as technology and cloud platform partner.

The benefits and business value of using blockchain technology for government bond distribution is shared across stakeholders, and include faster bond issuance for investors, decreased workloads and processing time for issuers, underwriters and registrars, as well as greater transparency and reduced operating costs across the entire value chain.

“Bank of Thailand’s success with the government savings bond project is the latest example of how blockchain technology can redefine the way businesses operate by simplifying complex processes resulting in fast, transparent, secured and efficient multiparty collaboration,” said Patama Chantaruck, VP for Indochina Expansion and MD of IBM Thailand. “IBM is proud to bring our world-class blockchain platform and IBM Cloud to support Bank of Thailand, and work side-by-side with them in achieving this important milestone for Thailand’s financial industry.”

Bank of Thailand now plans to extend blockchain to all other government bonds targeting both retail and wholesale investors.

Thailand is an active adopter of blockchain technology, with a dynamic ecosystem extending to both public and private spheres. In 2019, the electronic letter of guarantee (eLG) platform and network participated in by 22 Thai banks and 15 companies successfully went live and currently handles approximately $300M USD in guarantee letters. Thai Customs Department also became the second government agency in southeast Asia to use TradeLens, a blockchain-based global trade digitization platform that improves the speed, accuracy and security of local and international shipping activities. More pilots and applications of blockchain are also being rolled out to bring transparency and efficiency to finance, insurance, government and other sectors.