In March we reported that the Pakistan Banks’ Association signed a contract with Avanza Group to develop a blockchain-based shared Know Your Customer (KYC) solution. It was developed with guidance from the State Bank of Pakistan, which advised all banks to join yesterday.

“This new platform will provide a number of benefits to banks including; timely exchange and updating of customers’ KYC/ CDD (customer due diligence) information across the banking industry through a secure digital channel, standardization of KYC/ CDD data, enhancing customer onboarding experience and cost savings for the banks,” said the central bank.

The advantage of using DLT is the customer data resides within the banks rather than on a centralized platform. Banks where consumers plan to join can only access the data with customer consent.

However, in preparation for this article, we visited the marketing website of technology provider Avanza Group. It had been hacked. According to our basic review, the website didn’t have a firewall and used outdated software.

We believe the same company is working on a shared KYC platform in Bahrain.

Another provider, norbloc, developed a blockchain-based shared KYC platform for the UAE that launched in 2020. Norbloc was one of a group that participated in a Sri Lanka KYC proof of concept, but we don’t believe Sri Lanka moved to production. Wecan Comply also provides an institutional KYC and compliance sharing platform in Switzerland.

Other jurisdictions that have explored blockchain for shared KYC include Australia and Spain.