In order to settle an invoice with Nordic Store, which is a local retailer that purchased IKEA goods, an Icelandic branch of the Swedish furniture retailer has used Tradeshift’s platform and smart contracts” built on the Ethereum blockchain

It has been reported that the transaction was carried out in “Monerium’s programmable digital cash” and not on Ether. Monerium is a fintech startup that has a backing of Ethereum development studio ConsenSys. The upstart is notably the first electronic money institution that has been approved by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Iceland.

The transaction details are not out to the public, but those who were a part of the transaction believe that this Ethereum-based invoice settlement would help us understand what the future of digital payments looks like.

“As the first company authorized to issue e-money on blockchains, we are delighted to demonstrate the benefits of blockchains for mainstream B2B transactions using a legal form of digital money,” said Monerium’s CEO, Sveinn Valfells.

The CEO of IKEA Iceland, even announced that this “programmable financial supply chain, where trading partners can connect information flows to money flows through smart contracts,” will bring in new transformation in the way interaction takes place between customers and the suppliers. 

Although Monerium, TradeShift, Nordic Store, and IKEA were utilizing Ethereum, their transaction was purposefully made to be non-cryptocurrency related.  Valfells said:

“Unlike cryptocurrency which is volatile, e-money is a proven digital alternative to cash, regulated and redeemable on demand. Using programmable e-money in smart contracts heralds a new category of payments.”

IKEA’s decision of utilizing Ethereum based e-money smart contract system is quite important for the Blockchain and cryptocurrency world as IKEA is a huge corporation. This, for the Blockchain community, is a big deal. 

Not just IKEA, even Morningstar, which is a Chicago-based financial services giant, which deals with credit ratings and asset/market analysis, made a statement to Forbes saying that they have got themselves involved with Ethereum.

The said American firm wants to migrate some of its credit ratings business to a blockchain system through Ethereum smart contracts and oracles — programs used to bring off-chain data onto a blockchain. 

Yet another giant, Banco Santander, the largest bank in Spain, revealed in September that it had settled a $20 million bond wholly on Ethereum.

The company was thrilled about the pilot and mentioned how they were keen on understanding how Blockchain had the potential to “reduce the number of intermediaries required in the process, making the transaction faster, more efficient and simpler.”

It is interesting to witness how companies like Santander, IKEA, and Morningstar are using Ethereum and how the Blockchain boom has caught the attention of many other companies as well.