The bank consortium Niuron moves forward with the launch of a blockchain project to verify the digital identity of clients
Niuron is the first bank consortium for the knowledge and promotion of blockchain technology in the Spanish financial sector. Supported by eight companies (Abanca, Bankia, Caixabank, Caixa Ontinyent, Ibercaja, Kutxabank, Liberbank and Unicaja Bank) and led by Cecabank in collaboration with Grant Thornton, the aim of this consortium is two-sided. On one hand, to act as an observatory of technology to generate knowledge in the technical, legal and business field. And on the other hand, the promotion of collaborative projects between companies based on blockchain technology and focused on transforming the sector.
With this aim, a subgroup of five companies from the consortium (Abanca, Ibercaja, Kutxabank, Liberbank and Unicaja Bank), as well as another company on this occasion, Caja Ingenieros, is developing a project to quickly and securely verify the identity of a person when registering as a client. The purpose is to solve a common problem for all financial institutions, that need to ensure the truthfulness of the client's identity when working with them for the first time. The new platform allows to carry out checks quickly and securely and always with the client's explicit consent.
When this innovative project is finished at the end of this year, it will allow a client's digital identity to be shared between different banks, strictly meeting current data protection regulation (GDPR) and the highest security standards. It will also enable companies to continue to develop opportunities with blockchain technology, mostly via the transfer of knowledge to its professional teams.
For companies, the benefits of the platform means an increase in speed, savings in costs, a reduction in fraud and operational risk and an improvement in preventing money laundering. For the client it decreases the time needed during registration and they have control and sovereignty over their personal data, improving their user experience.
This project is the continuation of the proof of concept stage completed last September, when the founding companies of the consortium endorsed the potential of blockchain technology in transferring clients' information. This means that the compliance of money laundering prevention regulations and Know Your Customer are strengthened. During the proof of concept stage, the benefits that blockchain technology brings were confirmed: the improvement of cybersecurity and the traceability of operations, increased transparency and privacy, savings in costs due to removing intermediaries and ultimately, making the client the owner of their data.
Grant Thornton brings its experience in the development of blockchain technology, as well as a multidisciplinary team made up of lawyers, business experts and programmers to maximise the benefits of using this technology in the financial sector.
Cecabank brings its specialisation in the B2B financial sector, innovation in customer service and capacity to govern long term cooperative initiatives to lead all the activities being developed within the consortium to success.
