Public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) is soon going to roll out its blockhain-enabled Know Your Customer (KYC) and smart contracts by next month, according to Sudin Baraokar, Head of Innovation, SBI at a conference in Bengaluru.
Reportedly, these applications are a part of Bankchain, a joint venture of 27 banks, formed to explore and construct blockchain solutions in the banking domain.
“By next month, we should have two beta production solutions ready for use by the 27 banks. We will also invite further participation. The beta production that will be ready are smart contracts and second is KYC,” said Baraokar.
BankChain was formed this year in February and SBI was its first member. It consists of 22 Indian as well as five Middle-East based banks. This community has joined hands with Pune-based startup Primechain Technologies for creating these solutions.
Leading private sector banks including ICICI Bank, DCB Bank and Axis Bank are part of this community.
“BankChain is a big move. It is getting all banks together and collaborating. It is also de-risking our investment in emerging tech, so that all banks can come and invest at once…we can also share knowledge and reduce the cost. We can also use each other’s technical teams to take this forward. We focused on solutions that the bank does not have…things like smart contracts, which is not regulatory heavy. We focused on those solutions,” said Baraokar.
