Blockchain POC Created by Eastnets and Dow Jones for a Leading UK-Based Bank
EastNets and Dow Jones Risk & Compliance (DJ) have completed a Proof of Concept (POC) to provide organizations with near real-time updates of watch lists over blockchain. The POC which was conducted for a leading UK-based financial institution achieved higher levels of accuracy and security in the watchlist update activity, and consequently, in the watchlist screening process as a whole.
Using blockchain technology, financial Institutions globally can get real-time and secure watchlist updates to further mitigate compliance risk. When such updates are available from DJ, they are published to the blockchain network and are made available to customers who join the network. Such updates to the network would immediately result in updating all EastNets SafeWatch Filtering installations. In business terms, this means updating instantly the lists for all business units of financial institutions; whether these units are geographically dispersed branches, or different functions and lines of businesses.
The new blockchain network will be a private permissioned blockchain to meet the requirements of the financial industry. Hyper-Ledger Fabric Blockchain is used in the POC to provide an enterprise level private-permissioned and strict-accessed ledger, to support selective data distribution and to provide a modular architecture that can scale.
“The new blockchain network automates list updates and eliminates manual processes, thus providing higher security by making the updates tamper-proof and by making watchlist updates available to organizations using en.SafeWatch Filtering once published by Dow Jones Risk & Compliance with a high return on their investment by eliminating lengthy update processes explained Hazem Mulhim, the CEO of EastNets.
Guy Harrison, Managing Director, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance said: “The results from combining powerful technologies as in the case of EastNets blockchain network on top of its en.SafeWatch Filtering Screening Solution with world-class quality data like Dow Jones” Risk & Compliance” Sanction Alerts offering are magnificent. Such combination, on top of the previously provided effective screening and low false positive rates, offers now higher levels of security in a faster and more efficient manner.”
Customers who join the network will be able to carry out integrity checks to ensure that updates to the blockchain network have been properly reflected to their en.SafeWatch Filtering solution thus benefiting from the high speed, security and non-repudiation that the service will offer. EastNets is targeting Q1 2019 as a go-live date for rolling out the new blockchain network and having the financial institutes globally benefit from this service.