Accenture and Digital Ventures launch supply chain-focused blockchain solution in Thailand

Accenture and Digital Ventures, Siam Commercial Bank’s fintech subsidiary, have produced the world’s first fully integrated procure-to-pay blockchain solution to streamline purchasing processes, payments, and finance acquisition for Thai businesses

The solution has been incorporated into R3’s Corda open-source platform, and will significantly improve efficiency for supply chain operations.

Blockchain technology will significantly mitigate invoice financing time as well as providing security and traceability to combat fraud.

The scale of physical invoicing will also be reduced significantly, enabling suppliers to become integrated with Thailand’s e-tax invoice initiative and subsequently freeing up time for other vital activities.

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Divyesh Vithlani, head of Accenture’s Financial Services across the ASEAN region, said in the firm’s press release:

“The most exciting part of the blockchain solution is that the outcome is so tangible: the efficiency improvement, the cost reduction and the convenience that all stakeholders have experienced with this platform.” 

“This successful outcome is a powerful testament of the collaboration we have with our clients, while delivering value in the market at speed.”

Co-development of the solution’s design and implementation took a mere five months, with Accenture’s statement citing the collaboration with Digital Ventures and R3 as being hugely beneficial to the tackling of technical challenges.

“Given that most supply chains involve a large number of suppliers, the complexity of integrating and reconciling all the different systems from each of the companies can be a costly, daunting and time-consuming task,” added Orapon Thien-Ngern, Digital Ventures CEO. 

“Blockchain enables parties to securely share all the information without the need for extensive integration between their various technology systems.”