The third largest bank in the U.S, Citibank recently announced that it does not intend to provide fund the development of their bank-backed currency ‘Citicoin’, an idea it toyed with in 2015.

Blockchain for the Future

During an interview with CoinDesk Gulru Atak, the head current innovation lab of  Citibank Group explained the stance of the company concerning the reported creation of a coin controlled by its bank.

According to Atak, the company will focus its effort on providing improvements to its existing platform and enhancing its cross-border payment methods using existing system around the world.

“Based on our learnings from that experiment we actually decided to make meaningful improvements in the existing rails by leveraging the payments ecosystem and within that ecosystem, we are considering the fin-techs as well or the regulators around the world as well, including SWIFT,”

Not Giving Up On Bockchain

Citibank clearly expressed its desire toward Blockchain adoption stating that its plan is to pursue plans with short-term impact even though it has been proven that blockchain delivers on its promises.

“We are trying to make those changes today, rather than just putting all our efforts into future technology,”

he said

The idea of a bank-backed coin was hinted in 2015 by Altak’ predecessor, but the bank didn’t even launch a proof-of-concept for its Blockchain project.

Atak said that Citi will continue to explore blockchain use in its services especially with respect to trade finance.

“There is a niche ecosystem and if you look at liquidity providers in the FX space, the major liquidity providers are not that many. So that’s an ecosystem where you could maybe think of it and have like five or six together and you can start actually creating a difference,” he said.