According to a report, almost half of the public banks in China said they were using blockchain technologies in 2017.

CEBNet, which is the news source for China’s banking sector, reported on Friday that twelve of the 26 Chinese banks had included in their annual filings a case in which blockchain applications were accepted to be used in different cases over the past year. Among these institutions, there are commercial banks, including China Construction Bank, Bank of China, and the Agriculture Bank of China, as well as private ones such as the Chinese Merchants Bank and some other banks at the city level.

Accepted and utilized applications of blockchain use range from identity verification processes to cross-border credit sending as well as the issuing of invoices.

For instance, Bank of China, which takes another approach, remarks that it has completed tests for a distributed IT infrastructure to use throughout its branches to further develop a digital wallet that is blockchain-based.

According to the annual report filed by the Agriculture Bank of China, a state-sponsored institution has developed a decentralized network that allows automatic credit issuance process to the merchants of agricultural e-commerce.

In a similar manner, China Construction Bank explained that they have started a blockchain-based platform that supplies cross-bank and cross-border loans for small businesses. The bank also reports that a total of $251 million has been traded on the platform so far.

This massive blockchain phase coincides with a time when the banking regulator of the country is willing to take advantage of this technology in the financial sector, especially when it comes to increasing the efficiency of the loans granted.

It has been discussed that Chinese banks are researching for alternative ways to use blockchain technology to handle the data storage problems and simplify certificate authentication processes.