Dow Jones Risk & Compliance has teamed up with a company called EastNets to build a real-time blockchain-based watchlist feed. This watchlist identifies high-risk third parties for business deals and helps maintain a business’s regulatory compliance. This blockchain-based product currently lets users solve problems associated with manually updating these watchlists and protecting data from cyber criminals.

Deya Innab, chief strategy and product officer for EastNets, said:

“Designing and testing a suitable solution was challenging, but we are delighted to lead the industry with a real-time, secure watchlist update solution that is actively used by leading institutions that now meet their compliance obligations every minute of the day.”

Although the announcement did not reveal which institutions already use this blockchain-based watchlist, Dow Jones’s risk management and compliance arm has already gained traction among major companies like Deutsche Bank, Barron’s, and The Wall Street Journal.

Blockchain adoption is growing

More and more traditional businesses are deriving value from blockchain technology. For instance, digital payment giant, PayPal, is hiring an Anti-Money-Laundering and Blockchain Strategy director for their Global Financial Crimes division. The person in this role will evaluate blockchain’s usefulness in the prevention of financial crimes.

The European Commission is offering grants to blockchain developers and other specialists for solutions that adapt technologies from civil to defense applications. The use of blockchain can purportedly allow for the use of tamper-proof cryptographic tags that validate the provenance, state, and ownership of products or objects.