Poland’s Largest Bank Adopts Blockchain for Data Transfer

Poland’s largest bank, PKO Bank Polski, is about to launch what it expects to be Europe’s largest client-facing blockchain implementations. With the new solution, the bank will publish documents available to its clients by using a distributed ledger. Earlier, the bank partnered with London-based blockchain firm Coinfirm to develop a distributed ledger of client documents involving transactions and agreements, among others. The bank will use Coinfirm’s Trudatum platform, which will allow its 5 million clients to browse and authenticate all of their banking data and documents.

Initially, the deal was announced in March of this year, after the bank had tested the technology for about a year. On Monday, the Polish bank said that it was ready to launch the tool to enable almost half of its clients to receive the relevant documents electronically via blockchain. Customers have the option to voluntarily choose to go for the new type of data transfer. Thus, PKO said that five million of its clients would soon see digital terms and conditions for accessing the banking products.

Adam Marciniak, VP of PKO’s management board, commented:

“Blockchain has the potential to increase the competitiveness of the Polish banking sector. PKO Bank Polski is successfully implementing a strategy focused on digitization, and the implementation of blockchain based solutions is part of this process and should strengthen our position as a technological leader in Polish banking.”

Coinfirm co-founder and CEO Paweł Kuskowski said:

“The implementation of Trudatum in an institution as large as PKO is a breakthrough on a global scale. This demonstrates that the Polish financial sector is open to innovation and wants to become an international trendsetter.”

According to PKO, the solution has been developed in collaboration with Poland’s National Clearing House – Krajowa Izba Rozliczeniowa (KIR), an institution that has the National Bank of Poland and several local banks as shareholders.

The technology provided by British-Polish Coinfirm, which is based on Hyperledger Fabric, is the first implementation of a blockchain solution in the Polish banking sector.

In May of this year, the Polish Credit Office, partially owned by PKO, partnered with Billon to adopt blockchain for storing customer data.