Dubai Economy and Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Authority have signed an agreement to consolidate efforts and expand the UAE KYC (Know Your Customer) Blockchain Consortium positioning it as the national corporate e-KYC platform, making it the first in the region.
The platform will facilitate faster, more secure and streamlined customer onboarding and allow sharing of verified e-KYC data between licensing authorities and financial institutions through advanced distributed technologies.
The founding consortium members include Dubai Economy, Dubai International Financial Centre, Emirates NBD, Emirates Islamic, Commercial Bank of Dubai, HSBC, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, RAKBANK and Mashreq Bank.
The first phase went live in 2020 and more entities have joined since resulting in the platform holding close to 50% of corporate e-KYC records in UAE.
Abdulla Hassan, CEO, Corporate Support Sector, Dubai Economy said,
“Following its launch in 2020, the platform has become increasingly crucial not only in simplifying the procedures for opening bank accounts for investors, but also in enabling banks to digitally receive verified KYC data.
The UAE KYC Blockchain Platform supports the vision of the Invest in Dubai (IID) Portal by facilitating instant opening of bank accounts for investors. A significant number of financial institutions and licensing authorities have decided to onboard the platform and we welcome others to be part of this success story,”
Alya Al Zarouni, Executive Vice President of Operations at DIFC Authority said,
“ Implementing a nationwide e-KYC solution will make it easier for new businesses to open accounts easily when they set up operations in the UAE and supports our leading position in the region for managing privacy and data protection to the highest international standards.
DIFC has already had success in this area having been the first to launch a one-click blockchain solution that shared verified data with a banking partner so clients could get a corporate account opened quickly, efficiently and safely.”
