S7, Russia’s second largest airline, has processed over $1 million in a month through its blockchain payment system, the company announced in a press release on July 30.
According to the announcement, S7 developed its blockchain-powered sales network through a partnership with Russia’s largest private bank – Alfa-Bank. It was created with the help of Hyperledger Fabric’s platform, which let S7 safely and privately store data of different members, and was able to expand the number of automated processes. The company also claims that the platform has experienced a ten-fold increase in the number of payments since January. Pavel Ryazanov, Director of Transaction Business at Alfa-Bank, stated in the press release:
“The good results of our project with S7 Airlines shows that the blockchain technology creates value and is largely decisive for the B2B market. Agents left behind the guarantees and deposits, reduced transaction costs and now can make payments 24/7. We see great potential in the use of smart contracts and external business logic in accounting and paperwork in various sectors of the economy.”
The company has also claimed that they were able to sell the first air ticket over the ethereum-based private blockchain platform back in July 2017. But this is not the only blockchain project that the company has supported. It also claims to be the first airline in Russia to “refuel an aircraft using smart contracts based on the blockchain technology”, which was achieved in partnership with Gazpromneft-Aero and Alfa-Bank.
Ekaterina Dmitruk, S7 Group Sales Director, has also said in the press release that the company is planning to deploy its first online agents, whose work would comply with the NDC standard this year. A report made by crypto media outlet ForkLog also shows that S7’s blockchain platform was able to process around $3.9 million in payments since the beginning of this year.