Dubai Economy (Department of Economic Development – Government of Dubai), along with Emirates NBD, Emirates Islamic, HSBC, RAKBANK, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) and Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) are in a consortium for sharing of verified KYC (Know Your Customer) data between banks and licensing authorities in the UAE.
The KYC Blockchain Consortium is expected to facilitate a faster, more secure onboarding and exchange of digital customer data and documents through advanced blockchain-powered distributed technologies.
“Our strategic alliance with banks to launch the first KYC blockchain platform in the UAE is an important step towards continuing to attract investors to this market,” His Excellency Ali Ibrahim, Deputy Director General of Dubai Economy said. “The platform will offer a digital ‘Instant Bank Account’ functionality, allowing for faster and less cumbersome onboarding journey with banks and significantly improving the experience of new investors looking to establish themselves in the UAE. This in turn will boost customer satisfaction as well as ease of doing business in the UAE as a whole.”
The consortium will drive the mutualisation of KYC efforts among existing and future ecosystem participants on a common platform to be launched in Q1 2020 and thereafter will open for additional qualified financial institutions and licensing authorities to join. Smart Dubai in collaboration with the UAE Central Bank will play a pivotal role in overseeing and regulating the operations of the consortium.
norbloc is the technology provider for the consortium. Dubai Pulse, a joint initiative between Smart Dubai and du, is the government-certified blockchain platform enabler. The platform offers varied features including scalability and facility to onboard new entities, with capabilities for entity nodes to be hosted either on Dubai Pulse or on external infrastructure.
Source: IBSintelligence.com
