The financial giant based in the U.S., Wells Fargo & Co., has announced that it plans on launching their own digital currency called Wells Fargo Digital Cash on its blockchain platform. According to a press release, the Wells Fargo Digital Cash will enable the clients to handle internal book transfers of international payments. 

Using the blockchain platform, Wells Fargo will be enabled to run near real-time money transactions, while also eliminated the need for intermediaries and lowering the transaction cost and time. 

During the pilot testing of the program in 2020, it will mainly operate U.S. dollar transfers with the Wells Fargo Digital Cash with the aim to expand to other currencies in the future. 

“As a result of the increasing digitization of banking services globally, we see a growing demand to further reduce friction regarding traditional borders, and today’s technology puts us in a strong position to do that,” said the head of the innovation group at Wells Fargo, Lisa Frazier. “We believe DLT holds promise for a variety of use cases, and we’re energized to take this significant step in applying the technology to banking in a material and scalable way. Wells Fargo Digital Cash has the potential to enable Wells Fargo to remove barriers to real-time financial interactions across multiple accounts in multiple marketplaces around the world.”

Previously, Wells Fargo has launched various blockchain project, including a trade finance program developed for the cotton market, and a banking prototype. It has also invested in Axoni, which is a blockchain finance start-up.

Along with taking care of internal settlement through blockchain, the company claims that it will use its DLT platform for various other applications as well.