CULedger, a blockchain consortium and credit union service organization, has successfully completed a pilot project together with three American credit unions.

Fintech Futures reported on Dec. 16 that the pilot focused on implementing CULedger’s blockchain identity platform in the call centers at Unify Financial Credit Union, Desert Financial Credit Union, and TruWest Credit Union.

All three credit unions chose to focus their trial on high-risk transactions conducted via phone, identifying these as “a high-friction channel that fraudsters find effective and least expensive to attack.”

Secure identity for a potential 260M credit union members worldwide

As Cointelegraph previously reported, CULedger uses its blockchain platform to improve cybersecurity and mitigate fraud risks for credit unions, as well as to streamline their administrative and operational processes to save time and costs.

The firm has created a customizable CULedger-issued digital credential, “MyCUID,” which can be used to authenticate financial transactions between members of any credit union on the blockchain network. Over 260 million credit union members — with over $1.7 trillion of circulating assets — are reported to exist worldwide.

Reflecting on CULedger’s recent pilot, Ron Amstutz, the executive vice president of Desert Financial Credit Union, explained that:

“Once my credit union fully identifies who I am and issues my MyCUID credential, other institutions like medical and government can trust and accept it too. We’re excited to eliminate the need for usernames and passwords. I have hundreds of passwords and imagine many of our members do too. With MyCUID, we’re able to reduce that burden with a safer, more secure option.”

CULedger says that MyCUID users can use biometric features such as voice, fingerprint or facial recognition features on their mobile devices to verify their identity. It claims the pilot demonstrated that the identity verification time for members had been reduced from 50 seconds to 10 or less.

Industry partnerships

Earlier this year, CULedger partnered with IBM to further develop its credit union blockchain solutions, having previously joined enterprise software firm R3’s global blockchain ecosystem in December 2018.

With R3, CULedger has gone on to design a product dubbed CU Pay, which improves connectivity between payment networks in order to reduce friction in cross-border electronic funds transfers. The product is slated for launch in 2020, and will be integrated with R3’s open-source Corda-based decentralized application Corda Settler.