As reported by Live Bitcoin News earlier this week the multinational corporation IBM (NYSE: IBM) has been big on blockchain research and development lately. Now the company has announced they successfully completed an identity system blockchain pilot with the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa a group of cooperative and mutual banks located in France.

The project the firm says is an operational permissioned blockchain protocol that provides a user a digital identity that will enable KYC and AML regulatory policies. IBM says the pilot with Crédit Mutuel Arkéa shows distributed ledger technology potential and its “disruptive capabilities” beyond “common transaction-oriented use cases.” Because the pilot was so successful Crédit Mutuel Arkéa group and IBM are planning to federate the project “creating a single but cross-businesses KYC platform to inform all of the bank processes.” Frédéric Laurent, COO Innovation & Operations, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa said in the announcement:

“Blockchain is a transformative agent in our operational application, as proven by this project— the first of its kind in France. This pilot offers a complete view of customers’ documents across our distributed network.— The project helped us to understand and master blockchain for other client uses. Now, we are ready to incorporate this technology in our ecosystem.”

IBM states the distributed ledger technology uses “existing evidence” stored between Crédit Mutuel Arkéa’s records which include mortgage data, life insurance, and bank account openings. The firm believes it makes the process easier, and the result is better customer satisfaction. With 3.6 million customers the bank expects this technology to improve customer relations vastly.

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa used IBM’s technical resources for the pilot such as IBM design, Bluemix, Blockchain-as-a-Service, DevOps, and IBM Global Business Services. Juliette Macret, IBM Financial Services Sector Business Development Director, of IBM France explained the key roles of IBM’s contributions:

“Crédit Mutuel Arkéa applied IBM Design Thinking and agile development methods to turn a simple idea into a strategic, decentralized platform for collaboration. The availability of IBM Blockchain services and DevOps tools on IBM innovation platform Bluemix was key to accelerate the time-to-value during the development phase.— As the foundation of a robust system of trust, blockchain technology can help businesses create frictionless business transactions that improve customer satisfaction and employee efficiency.”

With the use of the open-source Hyperledger Project architecture, the service uses the software to “reinforce consistency, traceability, and privacy of the information, which is critical in a highly regulated environment.” The firm says Crédit Mutuel Arkéa will use this resource to enable its customer base a reliable way to prove their identity in a digital fashion with “local utilities, retailers or regulated service providers.”

As Live Bitcoin News reported this week, IBM says it is working with hundreds of clients in preparation for the wake of blockchain technology innovation. Through IBM’s open source offerings, the multinational corporation says it is advancing the science of distributed ledgers, and they believe “financial services, supply chains, IoT, risk management, digital rights management and healthcare” will be the first major advancements with blockchain tech.

Source: Press Release