EXCLUSIVE – Blockchain in cross-border payments will be big in 2018. At least that’s what IBM’s Rajesh Venkatraman, director of worldwide payments solutions sales at IBM, thinks.

“Blockchain technology has many applications, but I believe cross-border payments is especially going to see tremendous traction,” he told Bank Innovation.

Perhaps that’s also because IBM has started numerous pilots in this area.

Earlier this fall, it announced a collaboration with startup Stellar, which uses blockchain technology to connect fiat currencies to enable instant international transfers. IBM will be working with New Zealand-based payments company, KlickEx, on this project as well.

In October at the Sibos conference in Toronto, IBM unveiled a pilot for a cross-border payment platform that enables money movement in near real-time on a single network. For this pilot, IBM has already onboarded certain banks like TD Bank, National Australia Bank, and Mizuho Financial Group in an advisory capacity. (More on this here).

“We are very optimistic about our efforts,” Venkatraman said, “blockchain technology has the ability to provide more visibility and reliability in cross border payments. Of course, there are many many other use cases also.”

Aside from blockchain, the two other areas IBM’s Venkatraman thinks will takeover in 2018 are machine learning and artificial intelligence, and the adoption of digital banking.

Of course, the use of artificial intelligence has already been in limelight this year, with voice recognition and devices like Alexa and Siri making AI mainstream topics.

Machine learning, particularly around fraud detection, will gain a lot of popularity next year, Venkatraman said. Especially with B2B payments as more and more corporations are working to modernize their existing legacy processes and payment methods.

Interestingly, Venkatraman, said when considering B2B, corporations tend to look at fraud as a top priority, followed by visibility, efficiency and lastly, cost. So the scope for ML in this space is vast.

By adoption of digital banking, Venkatraman means automation. Essentially, banks’ interaction with customers is going see heavy automation. Think chatbots instead of waiting on line, for instance, he said.

And while that’s also been a focus in 2017, the theme will be as prevalent, if not more, next year.

“Addressing customers is going to be the number one driver,” Venkatraman said.

To learn more about the latest developments in blockchain and mobile payments, join us on March 5-6, 2018 at the Parc 55 in San Francisco for Bank Innovation 2018. Click here to request an invitation.