Poland becomes world’s first to put banking records on the blockchain

Polish Credit Office, the largest credit bureau in CEE, commits to implementing Billon blockchain for storage and secure access to sensitive customer information.

(London/Warsaw, May 9, 2018) Billon, the technology company that has civilised blockchain technology, and the Polish Credit Office (Biuro Informacji Kredytowej - BIK), the largest credit bureau in Central and Eastern Europe, will jointly implement blockchain for storage and secure access to highly sensitive customer information. Billon’s blockchain technology will benefit the bureau through superior security, integrity and immutability of data. The fully-GDPR compliant solution guarantees total visibility, trackable history and full data integrity for any client-facing document including banking records, loan agreements, insurance claims, telephone bills and terms & conditions.  

BIK, which is owned by the largest banks in Poland including PKO Bank Polski, PKO SA, Idea Bank, mBank, ING Bank, BGZ BNP Paribas, and Bank Handlowy, tracks over 140 million credit histories of over 1 million businesses and 24 million people in Poland  

“Our cooperation with Billon is long-term. We believe that blockchain technology will transform how the financial sector communicates sensitive data with clients. Our solution will soon be expanded to include electronic delivery with active confirmation and remote signing of online agreements. It is also important that the solution meets the legal requirements of a durable medium of information, as well as the requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, which comes into force this month,” said Mariusz Cholewa, President of BIK.  

BIK and Billon partnered in late 2017 to develop a solution for durable medium of information, defined by a number of EU regulations and directives such as GDPR and the latest MIFID II and IDD directives. The partnership saw eight Polish banks participating in product trials which established that Billon’s scalable blockchain architecture could publish over 150 million documents every month; a number that would be more than sufficient for even the largest institutions to move to entirely paperless customer service.

The solution has been consulted with the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) and the Financial Supervision Authority (KNF), making it one of the world’s first Regtech compliant blockchain solutions and the only one with on-chain data storage and a mechanism enabling "the right to erase personal data". Currently,  the only major alternative to this solution are hardware-based archive solutions such as legacy WORM drives. Compared to them, Billon’s blockchain solution offers an overall 30 percent saving in TCO and ensures minimal upfront costs.

“Our partnership is a start of a true revolution in information management. Together we have shown that it is possible to move away from the constraints of closed central databases to a democratic blockchain-based Internet where every user will be able to control his or her identity,” explained Andrzej Horoszczak, founder and CEO of Billon. “The solution we have created with BIK provides the world’s first GDPR-compliant blockchain platform which can streamline customer service processes and manage the implementation of customer rights such as the “right to be forgotten”. This solution returns control of user data back to consumers, creating a level playing field between individuals and big corporations. The benefits of this solution can have an impact beyond the financial sector, and we anticipate that it will soon be adopted by institutions across industries such as telecommunications, insurance and utilities. It is our firm belief that the cooperation between Billon and BIK is the first step to introducing mass use of blockchain technology for trusted document management.”  

The jointly-developed solution is based on Billon’s distributed ledger which enables any and all events and objects to be recorded in the form of subsequent blocks. Each block contains a cryptographic reference to the preceding block. The solution guarantees the integrity and irrefutability of recorded information in instances where there is a scattering of documents from different stakeholders. Removal of any block is immediately detected by the system, and any damage automatically repaired. Once published, every document is retained regardless of what happens to the original publisher, so that the guarantee of long-term duration of storage time and unblockable access to information are independent from the status of the contractual relationship between the service provider and the user. The technology created by Billon, backed by multiple patent filings, is ready to be implemented at performance levels that rival traditional centralised databases. 

About BIK: 
Biuro Informacji Kredytowej S.A. collects and provides data on the credit history of bank clients, credit unions, etc. from the entire credit market in Poland. BIK has the largest data collection on individual clients and entrepreneurs, including information on 146.2 million accounts belonging to 24.3 million individuals and a credit history of a total of 1.2 million companies, farmers and other entities, including 757 thousand micro-entrepreneurs. Individual clients can monitor their credit history through the online portal www.bik.pl. BIK Alerts service fulfills a social role and protects individuals against credit extortions or delays in repayment.  

About Billon:
Billon has created a versatile distributed ledger technology that enables a new digital way to exchange money and data simultaneously without issuing cryptocurrencies. The revolutionary, highly scalable architecture of the next-generation blockchain relies on national currencies and stores virtually unlimited data in a secure, distributed network. This integrated system of data, money and identity processing allows building transformational solutions and business-ready products meeting all the needs of money and data management, from loyalty programs, through nanopayments, to a document repository.   Founded in 2012, Billon is an FCA registered eMoney institution with a global team of more than 100 professionals across its offices in the UK, US and Poland. One of its ready solutions was awarded a Horizon 2020 grant, the EU’s biggest research and innovation programme. For more information, please visit: www.billongroup.com