At the UK’s Association of Corporate Treasurers Working capital conference last month there was little mention of block chain/Distributed Ledger Technology solutions, but don’t be fooled things are happening worldwide as companies, suppliers and banks consolidate their efforts.

New blockchain association in EU

SWIFT, IBM, Ripple and around 100 other organizations have joined a new blockchain association that aims to promote adoption of the technology across the EU. The International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA), will launch on 10 April 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. The group has been set up as a “global multi-stakeholder forum” aimed to bring together developers and users of blockchain technology to promote mainstream adoption across multiple sectors.

Members include:

• blockchain startups such as Ethereum development studio ConsenSys, blockchain tech company Bitfury, enterprise blockchain R3, cryptocurrency hardware wallet maker Ledger and cryptocurrency protocol developer IOTA
• Barclays and BBVA, consultancy companies Accenture and French beauty product company L’Oreal.

According to THE PAYPERS, “The association plans to build a framework to encourage public and private sector collaboration, dialogue with regulators and policymakers and “legal predictability,” as well as ensure “integrity and transparency” in blockchain infrastructures. It will also develop guidelines and specifications for blockchain and distributed ledger-based applications.”

China the world’s leader

KapronASIA reports that, “China is becoming a blockchain juggernaut, at least in terms of projects underway. By the estimates of Beijing-based data service provider Blockdata (in an April report), China is leading the world with 263 blockchain projects - 25% of the total globally - in the pipeline as of November 2018.”

Tradle

Tradle, the KYC platform on the blockchain, which uniquely enables a decentralised data solution, overcoming the major weakness of the other KYC platforms which store the KYC data centrally, are making major progress with regulators worldwide. Storage of data locally is going to become a major differentiator in KYC solutions. Already governments are starting to insist on data being stored locally, e.g. Singapore.

Project partners in the Tradle project include UK’s FCA, Lloyd’s, Rabobank, Lloyds Bank, consultancies such as Clifford Chance, Perpetual guardian, R3, Canonical, and Finastra. 

* * *

CTMfile take: Blockchain solutions are coming worldwide, it is just a matter of when and how, but they cannot solve everything which comes as a surprise for some ‘believers’. Don’t be fooled by the lack of publicity on blockchain, Distributed Ledger Technology solutions are already starting to have a major impact and you ain’t seen nothing yet.