CariNet, the Caribbean Digital Finance and Free Trade System, was launched on May 31. According to the press release put out, it will apply blockchain technology to “help the Caribbean FTA member countries to build digital payment and digital financial infrastructures in order to build a platform for international trade.”
Why it is important
- The reputation of the Caribbean as a reliable offshore began to fall after the publication of the ‘Panama Papers’ in 2016, which was an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database. The publication of these documents continue to this day.
Caribbean FTA member countries will be able to use the infrastructure of digital payments, including mobile software and ATMs with the help of the blockchain system. Thus, it will be possible to solve the problem with the lack of a local electronic payment system. CariNet developers believe that it will “assist countries to build digital financial infrastructures to help the world's largest traditional offshore financial centre to complete the transition under the digital financial wave of the blockchain.”
The system is supported by 15 national nodes. Each FTA member country will establish a node on the blockсhain platform and participates in data storage and consensus. Also, nodes will be able to monitor all transactions in the system and all operations can be observed in real time, which will avoid using the payment system for illegal operations.
One of the platform’s goals is to build a link between blockchain and traditional financial products such as bonds, futures and options.
“The blockchain financial infrastructures will be combined with the original offshore financial products and services in the Caribbean FTA to eliminate some intermediate links in the original financial market and realize the peer-to-peer direct transaction, which is simplifying the business process, shortening the trading period, effectively reducing the risk, increasing the efficiency and saving the cost,” - authors of the project believe.
By Ekaterina Ulyanova