PBA, Avanza Ink Deal to Develop Pakistan’s First Blockchain-Based Banking Platform

The Pakistan Banks’ Association (PBA) has signed a project agreement with the Avanza Group to develop and implement the country’s first blockchain-based national electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) banking platform. The signing ceremony took place at the PBA office in Karachi. PBA Chairman Muhammad Aurangzeb, who is also the president of HBL, Akhter Javed, director of BPRD SBP, Tawfiq Hussain, CEO of PBA, Waqas Mirza, and Omer Khan, CEO of Avanza Solutions (Pvt) Ltd all attended the ceremony. The eKYC project is part of the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) ongoing efforts to strengthen the country’s anti-money laundering (AML)/terrorist financing (TF) control infrastructure. In addition to strengthening AML controls, the implementation of this platform will improve efficiencies at participating banks and improve customer experience, particularly at the time of account opening, thereby facilitating financial inclusion. Once used by a member bank, eKYC data can be used by other banks for Customer Due Diligence (CDD), reducing the cost and effort involved in customer onboarding and improving the account opening experience, thereby facilitating financial inclusion. The eKYC platform ‘Consonance’ from the Avanza Group is being used for PBA. The platform will employ blockchain technology, allowing banks to standardize and exchange customer information via a decentralized and self-regulated network. This will be a support platform for Pakistan’s banking industry, and all participating member banks will be able to perform assessments of their existing as well as new customers by utilizing information/data available with any other bank on ‘Consonance’.