CenterPrime, a private Hyperledger based blockchain platform with access to the South Korean Open Banking API, is now sharing foreign exchange (FX) rate data from large Korean banks to Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network.
Participating banks include Hana Bank, Shinhan Bank, Nonghyup Bank, and Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK).
As mentioned in a Medium blog post, published on July 25, 2020:
“This integration with Chainlink marks a major breakthrough for the Korean Fintech industry. … applications will be able to access decentralized foreign exchange rates compiled by the best banks in [South] Korea. Projects will be able to access high quality Korean bank sourced exchange rates in the local currency KRW.”
The blog post noted that this development could potentially result in a significant expansion of blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT)-enabled Fintech apps, particularly those that offer cross-border payments solutions. This latest development should also support decentralized finance (DeFi) apps that are developing homegrown products that are priced in the Korean wons.
The announcement noted:
“After extensive research into the best methods of provisioning decentralized KRW-denominated exchange rates for use in Korean Fintech and DeFi, we identified Chainlink’s Price Reference Contract model as the best solution in the market, providing both highly secure infrastructure and an open framework that can satisfy all the different stakeholders.”
Chainlink price reference feeds will be launched on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. They can also be deployed on other blockchain or DLT platforms via Chainlink (including public or permissionless and enterprise or private Korean blockchains).
The announcement stated:
“By opening up access to these key price feeds, we anticipate a major uptick in development within the Korean Fintech and DeFi market.”
At present, CenterPrime is working on sharing this decentralized pricing data with a “Public Cloud Local Currency Wallet” (under development). The wallet may work alongside other live Chainlink Price Reference Data (e.g. BTC/USD, ETH/USD, etc) to create KRW exchange rates for decentralized cryptocurrencies.
Chainlink has teamed up with Google, Oracle, and SWIFT in order to develop solutions for sharing data in a secure manner. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has chosen Chainlink as one of its “Tech Pioneers” for this year.