Good morning. A broad range of banks and tech companies say they have found ways to apply blockchain technology to commercial lending operations known as trade finance. It’s another sign that blockchain, the emerging distributed ledger technology behind digital currencies such as bitcoin, can be used to remove the middle layers from a range of functions, making them simpler and cheaper. (For more on blockchain, see this CIO Explainer.)
HSBC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch said they had “joined with the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore to emulate a letter of credit (LOC) transaction,” Reuters reports. “Letters of credit are one of the most widely used ways to reduce risk between importers and exporters, helping guarantee more than $2 trillion worth of transactions, but the process creates a large paper trail and is time consuming,” Reuters said.
R3 CEV, a consortium of companies working on blockchain technologies, said more than 15 of its member banks had designed self-executing transaction agreements on its distributed ledger platform to process invoice financing and letters of credit, according to Reuters. R3 members and other companies see blockchain applications far beyond finance. Is blockchain playing a role in your business? Let us know.
OPM hires permanent CIO. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has named David DeVries, currently principal deputy CIO at the Defense Department, as its permanent chief information officer. He replaces Donna Seymour, who resigned after two years as OPM’s CIO in February, ahead of a congressional hearing into the cause of at least two data breaches at the agency in 2014.
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
Delta operations nearing recovery: CEO. Delta Air Lines Inc. CEO Ed Bastian, in an interview with the Journal’s Susan Carey, says the carrier has spent “hundreds of million in technology infrastructure upgrades and systems,” including $150 million this year alone. “We needed to increase the skill set, and we’ve done that,” Mr. Bastian said, referencing the January hire of CIO Rahul Samant. No one has lost their job as a result of Monday’s computer meltdown that led to the grounding of over 2,000 flights through Wednesday.
Banks like Watson’s cost-cutting potential. Bank executives tell Reuters that they believe IBM Corp.‘s Watson artificial intelligence software would help their businesses reach cost-cutting goals. IBM is touting Watson’s ability to help detect credit card fraud, provide investment recommendations and handle customer questions. The problem: A full-scale implementation would cost tens of millions of dollars, too high for banks looking for an immediate payoff. So far, says Reuters, Citigroup Inc is the only major U.S. bank to announce that it is testing Watson.
Alphabet sees another top executive leave. Bill Maris, the founder of Google’s venture arm in 2009 is leaving the company, Recode reports. David Krane, a managing partner, will replace Mr. Maris at GV, which over the years has recorded some hits, include early-stage bets in Uber Technologies Inc. and Jet.com. The move follows the announcement last week that Chris Urmson, a key figure in Google’s self-driving car effort, had left the company. In June Tony Fadell, chief of the company’s Nest unit, stepped down.
Feds embrace open source. The federal government, in an effort to cut down on software costs associated with duplicating tech efforts and relying on expensive vendor solutions, is requiring that agencies open source at least 20% of the code they develop over the next three years, Quartz reports.
Palantir buys data visualization startup.Palantir Technologies Inc., the big data company noted for its relationships with the CIA and other government agencies, has acquired Amsterdam-based data visualization company Silk, Geekwire reports.
Another tech company comes up short. In the eighteen months since Intel Corp. pledged to introduce more diversity among its ranks, the percentage of blacks and Hispanics in the chip giant’s workforce has changed little, the WSJ’s Georgia Wells reports. But the share of black and Hispanic employees at Intel, standing at 3.7% and 8% respectively, is greater than than at Google parent Alphabet Inc. where 2% of its U.S. employees are black and 3% Hispanic. At Facebook Inc., those shares are 2% black and 4% Hispanic.
Hack targeting Democrats wider than believed. The Russian hack of Democratic Party servers appears to be larger than believed and the FBI is now notifying party officials that their private email accounts may have been hacked, the New York Times reports. The targets appear to be individuals associated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign and party operatives, the NYT says.
EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether drugmaker Valeant defrauded insurers by shrouding its ties to a mail-order pharmacy that boosted sales of its drugs.(WSJ)
The International Energy Agency has trimmed its forecast for the rise in global oil demand next year on a dimmer economic outlook (WSJ)
China’s capital, suffering from years of breakneck expansion, is embarking on a radical plan to rein in its population by kicking people out of the city’s center. (WSJ)
The rate of layoffs in the U.S. dipped to 1.1%, matching the lowest in records dating back 15 years. (WSJ)
Tom Loftus contributed to this article. The Morning Download comes from the editors of CIO Journal and cues up the most important news in business technology every weekday morning. Send us your tips, compliments and complaints. You can get The Morning Download emailed to you each weekday morning by clicking http://on.wsj.com/TheMorningDownloadSignup.