BNP Paribas launches blockchain productivity lab

Rage Comment : BNP Paribas has successfully completed technical testing in cooperation with multiple institutions based on theoretical research on blockchain technology. This time, the company set up an Internet finance laboratory at its headquarters in New York, USA, starting with a hackathon to encourage all blockchain developers to stop exploring theoretical knowledge and start practical application development and testing. As the investors attending the meeting said, developing applications with practical significance will definitely attract the attention of investors.

Translation: Annie_Xu

BNP Paribas has opened a new fintech lab at its New York headquarters to research blockchain solutions for employee issues.

The multinational bank announced the news at a blockchain hackathon it organized. On the 30th floor of the bank's office building is a 5,000-square-foot Innovation Zone, which currently has 2,500 employees. Eventually the lab will house projects from six working groups, including blockchain, artificial intelligence and big data.

Bruno d-Illiers

Bruno d-Illiers, COO of BNP Paribas Commercial Investment Bank, discusses the vision for the project and why the lab is open to all employees, rather than just coders and traditional leadership.

"We don't think innovation is the exclusive domain of senior executives. We want to mobilize every employee to participate."

Hackathon kicks off the lab

The lab held its first project on the 7th of this month, with five teams participating in a hackathon to develop a blockchain proof-of-concept mechanism within two days.

The winner will be selected by judges the next day and will receive additional support from the bank.

Bruno d-Illiers, who has worked at the bank for 15 years, said:

“The purpose of this event is to do more and spread information and knowledge about blockchain.”

In order to help the more than 200 audience members present understand the full picture of blockchain, several industry leaders discussed the impact of blockchain on the financial industry and the role of learning community environment in enhancing banks' advantages.

"Many people understand blockchain, but they don't understand its impact on business models."

Blockchain Islands

After a brief introduction by Bruno d-Illiers, the event officially began with a discussion with Yorke Rhodes III, blockchain enterprise strategist at Microsoft; the focus included the flaws of the way early proof-of-concept mechanisms were developed and how to avoid them in the future.

Yorke Rhodes

Rhodes told the hackers that the user interface tends to avoid using traditional tables and other data sources as much as possible because they believe that these factors cannot compete with the efficiency of distributed ledgers.

Rhodes works with customers who want to use Microsoft's Project Bletchley toolkit.

Rhodes said that corporate clients and BNP Paribas's technology experts should stop purely studying the applicability of the technology and start building the user interface.

"End users do not need to know that blockchain is the underlying technology. R&D personnel should not think about the technology itself first, but where the difficulty lies and how to use distributed ledgers to solve this difficulty."

Advice for hackers

Next, Catherine Flax, head of commodities in the U.S. at BNP Paribas and board member of blockchain startup Digital Asset Holdings (DAH), moderated a panel with industry experts.

DAH Chief Marketing Officer Dan O'Prey, R3CEV co-founder and COO Todd McDonald, and blockchain investor Pascal Bouvier, who participated in the panel meeting, discussed the application of blockchain in enterprises and gave some advice to the participating hackers.

Finally, all panelists advised developers not to focus on the potential of blockchain research, but to focus on practical problems encountered in daily work.

Todd McDonald

McDonald said:

“Ask your questions, don’t get hung up on the blockchain hype, list the problems you face and use them as a starting point to continue your research.”

In addition, Pascal Bouvier, who had his first job at BNP Paribas, explained why he became a potential investor.

“Find and develop an identity solution, whether it’s a personal ID or a corporate ID; I know it will attract at least one investor.”