Visa has announced a preview of Visa B2B Connect, a new platform the network is developing to give financial institutions a "simple, fast and secure way to process business-to-business payments globally," according to a press release.

Visa said it is working with Chain to build Visa B2B Connect using Chain Core, an enterprise blockchain infrastructure that facilitates financial transactions on scalable, private blockchain networks.

Building on this technology, Visa is developing a new near real-time transaction system designed for the exchange of high-value international payments between participating banks on behalf of their corporate clients. Managed by Visa end-to-end, Visa B2B Connect will facilitate a consistent process to manage settlement through Visa's standard practices.

Visa B2B Connect, which Visa plans to pilot in 2017, is designed to improve B2B payments by providing a system that is:

• predictable and transparent — banks and their corporate clients receive near real-time notification and finality of payment;
• secure — signed and cryptographically linked transactions are designed to ensure an immutable system of record; and
• trusted — all parties in the network are known participants on a permissioned private blockchain architecture that is operated by Visa

"The time has never been better for the global business community to take advantage of new payment technologies and improve some of the most fundamental processes needed to run their businesses," said Jim McCarthy, executive vice president of innovation and strategic partnerships at Visa. "We are developing our new solution to give our financial institution partners an efficient, transparent way for payments to be made across the world."

"This is an exciting milestone in our partnership with Visa," said Adam Ludwin, CEO of Chain. "We are privileged to support Visa's efforts to enhance the service it provides to its clients and shape the future of international commerce with this blockchain-enabled innovation — streamlining business payments among financial institutions and their customers around the world."