BOCHK to become first Chinese bank to use blockchain technology

BOCHK and ASTRI jointly set up an innovation center, which is expected to become the first Hong Kong bank to use blockchain technology. Zheng Songyan, general manager of BOCHK's information technology department, said that he hopes to use blockchain in the mortgage process as soon as half a year, including the transmission of important documents to ensure the accuracy of the documents. BOCHK and ASTRI jointly set up an innovation center. Yue Yi, vice chairman and president of BOCHK, said that the bank attaches great importance to the development of financial technology and has established a "cyber finance center" and "innovation laboratory" to launch better financial services. The research scope of the joint center includes biometric authentication, big data, blockchain applications, electronic payment and network security. The goal is to improve the efficiency of bank operations. 100 professionals from ASTRI are used for research and development, and BOCHK's information technology department has been recruiting personnel. Zheng Songyan also said that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is also involved in application research, and the HKMA must approve it before launching services. Tong Fu-kei, CEO of ASTRI, said that ASTRI is also studying digital authentication blockchain applications. For example, banks can share some customer information, and customers do not need to fill in all personal information repeatedly when opening accounts in different banks. In addition to Bitcoin, the most representative application of blockchain technology is banks. As of now, more than 50 banks around the world are developing and applying blockchain technology. On June 22, BNP Paribas, the French Trust Bureau, the European Clearing Bank, the Euronext, S2iEM, Societe Generale ( 15.430 , 0.02 , 0.13% ) and the Paris Financial Markets Association jointly developed a blockchain clearing system. On June 24, Ripple announced that it had added 7 new banks (Santander Bank, UBS, UniCredit Bank, ReiseBank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) and ATB Financial) to their technical cooperation network, and is expected to become the world's first company to truly use blockchain-based technology for cross-border transfers. Industry insiders said that the application of blockchain technology by banks is just the tip of the iceberg. In the fields of securities, payment, land registration, investment and financing, logistics, etc., the application and development of blockchain technology has been carried out.