Dubai, UAE: Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the leading international financial hub in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region, together with Mashreq, a leading financial institution in the UAE, through its Corporate and Investment Banking Group, and norbloc, the leading Know Your Customer (KYC) and client onboarding fintech regionally headquartered in DIFC, announced today their strategic alliance to launch the region’s first production-ready blockchain KYC data sharing consortium in Q1 2020 to support businesses and Corporates in Dubai.
In line with the UAE Blockchain Strategy 2021, the alliance entered into a MoU in January 2019 with the strategic intent to create a first-to-market platform serving banking sector clients in the UAE. This market-leading initiative will facilitate faster, more secure onboarding and exchange of supporting documentation via advanced distributed technologies, including blockchain. The Program also outlines the creation of a Consortium Agreement to govern the mutualization of KYC efforts among future participating banks, government bodies, financial institutions as well as other licensing authorities to subscribe to the platform.
The alliance under a Tripartite Agreement has determined the optimal business framework and technical architecture to support the requirements of registered companies, financial institutions and regulators alike following a thorough and joint ‘Proof of Concept’, with the intended results further validating the positive impact of such an ecosystem. As a result, norbloc’s enterprise-grade, blockchain-powered ecosystem will be the first in the region to enable secure, customer-controlled KYC data sharing, initially between DIFC and Mashreq Bank.
