IBM, Banks Complete PoC of Blockchain-Based Shared KYC
Tech giant IBM has successfully completed the Phase I proof-of-concept (PoC) of its Shared Corporate Know-Your-Customer (KYC) project. The PoC was conducted in partnership with Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and the Treasuries of Cargill, IBM.
IBM said the PoC demonstrated how the blockchain-based IBM Shared KYC platform provides a secure, decentralized and efficient mechanism for banks to collect, validate, store, share, and refresh trusted KYC information of corporate customers. Network trust is established through digitally verified documents on the blockchain and the underlying consensus protocols.
The overall objectives of the PoC are to define harmonized standards for the collection and validation of certain core documents and information agreeable to all bank participant, eliminate repetition of mundane documentary tasks through collaboration and privacy-preserving sharing, create a sharing economy environment, digitize all corporate KYC information to preserve authenticity and accuracy, and provide greater flexibility for query and analysis of the data, and increase transparency and trust.
“With the fast-paced growth of banking and finance in Singapore, the current process, which is manual, repetitive, inefficient and expensive, will not be able to keep up,” said IBM. “Shared KYC aims to harmonize standards across banks with a focus on digitization of documentation, and multiple levels of information validation and augmentation, ensuring security and privacy for the platform participants.”
The shared KYC network governance will include regular certification of contributing banks to assess their compliance with the harmonized standards and provide transparency and confidence to the wider group of participating banks.
