Project Inthanon is a collaborative effort initiated by the Bank of Thailand and a consortium of industry partners to explore Distributed Ledger Technology to enhance Thailand’s domestic financial market infrastructures.
The BOT as the regulator in collaboration with leading industry participants consisting of
- 1.Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Limited
- 2.Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited
- 3.Krung Thai Bank Public Company Limited
- 4.Kasikornbank Public Company Limited
- 5.Siam Commercial Bank Public Company Limited
- 6.Thanachart Bank Public Company Limited
- 7.Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) Public Company Limited, and
- 8.Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
along with technology partner R3, were brought together to develop the blueprint for the Thailand’s financial market infrastructures for the future.
Phase 1 of Project Inthanon concluded in January 2019, successfully delivering a Cordabased proof-of-concept (POC) that demonstrated a decentralised Real-Time Gross Settlement system (RTGS) design that is resilient, efficient and integrated with an innovative Gridlock Resolution (GR) architecture.
Phase 2 of Project Inthanon concluded in July 2019, extended earlier POC capabilities related to
Lifecycle of bond tokens, Bond DvP and Interbank Repo
To leverage the bond tokens introduced in Phase I, Phase II aims for modelling lifecycle of bond tokens including coupon payments, interbank trading (DvP) and their final redemption. Interbank repos with bond tokens will also be explored.
Regulatory Compliance
Non-Thai residents having Thai Baht account opened with banks in Thailand are subjected to regulatory compliance; for example, a cap of 200 million baht at the end of the day per non-Thai resident across accounts hold within the Thai banking system. This issue was major pain point identified by participants in Phase I and proposed to be a key area for exploration in Phase II.
Fraud Detection and Prevention
Currently, certain types of fraud are difficult for banks to detect before fraudulent payments have been made. The transactional workflow relating to third-party funds transfer was redesigned by incorporating fraud prevention mechanism
Phase 3, where the focus will be shifted to cross-border payments and exploration of potential design for a payment network that enables Payment versus-Payment (PvP) of Thai Baht (THB) and other foreign currencies.