South Korean credit card giant to integrate Coinplug private blockchain identity service

South Korea’s largest credit card company, KB Koomkin Card, will use a blockchain identity solution developed by bitcoin company Coinplug.

The service will be based on the FidoChain private blockchain technology developed by Coinplug, which aims to provide a distributed digital identity authentication and maintenance solution. Kookmin Bank Card is a subsidiary of Kookmin Bank and plans to complete the integration by the end of this year.

Coinplug, a startup that has been working in the digital identity space for some time, won $45,000 last year in a competition held by JB Financial Group for its prototype system.

It is reported that both mature financial enterprises and new blockchain companies have targeted blockchain identity applications. Now, Coinplug is launching a "Coinplug Identification System" (or CIS system).

Kookmin Bank hopes to integrate the tool into its credit card services, according to Richard Yun, director and chief operating officer of Coinplug.

He told CoinDesk:

"Around mid-December this year, NAB Group will be using the technology for commercial purposes and making it available to all NAB credit card customers."

It is reported that in addition to enterprise blockchain projects, Coinplug also provides Bitcoin trading services. As of now, the company has received more than US$8 million in financing.

Addressing the pain points of identity authentication

FidoChain, an identity solution (using the KB Koomkin card as an example) allows users to add, verify or revoke identity information associated with credit card products.

Yun said the company hopes its solution can address security and user experience issues associated with existing identity solutions in South Korea.

“We believe it is very important to provide secure and easy-to-use identity and verification services to bank users. We believe that private blockchain technology can be very effective in implementing secure and scalable identity verification services.”

According to Yun, the private blockchain solution has attracted a lot of interest from Kookmin Bank, which reportedly had an operating profit of $2.6 billion in 2015 and is the largest commercial bank in South Korea.

“They are considering expanding the coverage of the Coinplug recognition system to other existing and new services,” Yun added.

Kookmin Bank did not respond to a request for comment by press time.