HSBC, a Hong Kong-based multinational bank, has become the first foreign entity to join United Arab Emirates’ Know-Your-Customer (KYC) Blockchain Platform and has also become the fourth founding member of a blockchain-based KYC data sharing coalition in the UAE, according to media reports. The news was recently announced by Dubai’s Economy’s media office in a blog post.
The UAE blockchain platform is said to be the national ecosystem for the exchange of verified KYC data between licensing authorities and financial institutions and the platform is designed to help licensed businesses and corporates open digital bank accounts instantly as part of the Invest in Dubai initiative. It is developed by DIFC-incubated blockchain firm norbloc and it has now gone live and available to all UAE-based corporates and banks.
Abdulfattah Sharaf, group GM, CEO, HSBC UAE told the media, “By being able to access up-to-date KYC data directly from Dubai Economy, we will be able to serve customers faster and focus more on their core banking needs.”
Until now, the platform has added Emirates Islamic, Emirates NBD, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, RAKBANK, and Mashreq Bank in its platform, hence HSBC is the first foreign bank to join the initiative.
The partnership is expected to integrate HSBC into the blockchain network, thereby allowing the bank to add new information to it or use existing information from other banks to improve their customer database.
HSBC has avoided public blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum in the past and earlier this year, the bank also stopped its customers from buying MicroStrategy stocks since it might expose the company to Bitcoin. CEO of HSBC Neil Quinn said that the bank is not looking to promote cryptocurrency due to its volatile nature.