The Middle East Africa and South Asia region is getting its first know your customer (KYC) data-sharing consortium in Dubai.
The initiative is the fruit of a partnership between The Dubai International Financial Centre, Mashreq Bank and norbloc, a KYC compliance company. The three has announced that they are launching the new centre in Dubai. It will be a region first. The centre will leverage blockchain technology to support businesses in Dubai. The new centre will open in the first quarter 2020.
The new centre is part of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Blockchain Strategy 2021. The strategy was launched in April 2018. It aims to capitalize on blockchain technology and to send 50 per cent of the government’s transactions via blockchain by 2021.
The three founding partners entered a memorandum of understanding in January 2019. The goal of it was to establish a first-to-market platform serving banking sector clients in the UAE. The aim of it was to facilitate faster and safer onboarding and exchange of supporting documentation via advanced distributed technologies, including blockchain.
The programme 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 licencing authorities, to subscribe to the platform.
Arif Amiri, CEO of the DIFC Authority, said, “This initiative provides a unique opportunity to harness innovative technology to deliver a seamless experience for both newly established and existing companies at the centre.”
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