The article describes a private blockchain which is not public to customers, so your example does not work here. I'm willing to consider any other specific examples you can think of.
"Customers" in this instance is in reference to the banks and businesses that would be apart of this Blockchain.
The "private" Blockchain is not private to the participants. IE, other banks.
This is bank to bank technology that is meant to replace the current settlement layer that banks currently use, but is quite slow.
IE, wire transfers between banks, that can be made much faster, and require less trust the current methods that banks transfer money between each other.
Right now settlement times between banks are high, or require that they trust some centralized, non transparent database.
This, on the other hand, reduces the trust necessary between banks.
A private database is not public to the customers. Customers have to trust that the database isn't being changed behind the scenes.
A Blockchain makes it transparent to all parties in the network, so you don't have to trust that nothing wierd is going on where you wont be able to see it.