First In the World
The Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA) announced on October 22 that the blockchain consortium of 26 South Korean securities companies unveils their Chain ID on October 31 to open their blockchain-based joint authentication service and blockchain system technology to the public.
The Chain ID is expected to reduce their authentication costs to about one-tenth. The consortium’s blockchain-based personal authentication service is the first one of its kind in the world on the consortium level. A Chain ID-based certificate is valid for three years whereas the public certificates currently in use have to be updated every year. The former provides a higher level of protection from data falsification, too.
The consortium was organized in December last year. The authentication service is scheduled to be launched first by the 11 consortium members including Daishin Securities, KB Securities, Hana Financial Investment, Korea Investment & Securities and Hanwha Investment & Securities. The consortium is planning to apply the blockchain technology to clearing and settlement in the latter half of 2018 and over-the-counter bond and derivatives trading in 2020.
In the meantime, the blockchain consortium of South Korean banks is aiming to launch a similar authentication service with Samsung SDS in the first half of next year. The securities companies and banks are going to link their blockchain authentication systems to each other in the future so the same certificates can be used in both industries without additional registration.