Concepts built on blockchain methodology are growing into firm product ideas and getting set to go in the banking sector in Australia. Westpac, for one, is well advanced in preparing ideas for market that put the technology to use. Remittance services to the Pacific is one product line at an advanced stage of testing, being used by bank staff.Commercial, low value services should be in production in 2016.Customer applications is only one facet of the business case for blockchain, at least in the eye of managers of industry pioneer Ripple.Dilip Rao, managing director Asia Pacific for Ripple, said the technology may "open a new model for correspondent banking."Speaking to Banking Day at SWIFT's Sibos exhibition in Singapore, Rao explained that "today, banks have a correspondent bank everywhere. They need to open accounts and put funds in as reserve. Lots of banks have lots of nostro accounts."Eighty per cent of the cost relates to funding the float held in those accounts."One aspect of the vision, Rao outlined, is "to try and create a marketplace where people who have liquidity can use that liquidity."SWIFT, Rao said, could "only send messages". Ripple, a distributed ledger, settles that transaction with finality," and in seconds", he said.