Leading French mutual, cooperative banking and insurance company Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, in partnership with IBM, has announced first blockchain project completion that focuses on improving the bank’s ability to verify customer identity.

The outcome of this successful pilot project is an operational permissioned blockchain network which gives an overall view of customer identity in compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements demonstrating disruptive capabilities of blockchain technology.

"Blockchain is a transformative agent in our operational application, as proven by this project -- the first of its kind in France. This pilot offers a complete view of customers' documents across our distributed network," Frédéric Laurent, COO Innovation & Operations at Crédit Mutuel Arkéa said. "The project helped us to understand and master Blockchain for other client uses. Now, we are ready to incorporate this technology in our ecosystem.”

The bank expects to use the technology in order to improve customers and advisors experiences. Crédit Mutuel Arkéa group and IBM together will merge the different silos of customer data and create a single cross-business KYC platform. This will reduce unnecessary duplication of information and requests.

“Crédit Mutuel Arkéa applied IBM Design Thinking and agile development methods to turn a simple idea into a strategic, decentralized platform for collaboration; the availability of IBM Blockchain services and DevOps tools on IBM innovation platform Bluemix was key to accelerate the time-to-value during the development phase,” Juliette Macret,Director of IBM Financial Services Sector Business Development, IBM France said.

The blockchain will identify and use all official existing evidence that are already stored in the bank’s multiple systems of record such as from mortgage applications or life insurance enrollment and bank accounts opening.

“As the foundation of a robust system of trust, Blockchain technology can help businesses create frictionless business transactions that improve customer satisfaction and employee efficiency,” Macret added.

IBM Design Thinking methodologies and the IBM Studio in Paris, IBM’s Bluemix, IBM Global Business Services are few other projects Crédit Mutuel Arkéa relied on the expertise of IBM for this current project.

The software reinforces consistency, traceability and privacy of the information to comply with regulatory requirements by using the open-source Hyperledger Project fabric.

Crédit Mutuel Arkea is a retail banking and insurance cooperative mutual bank. It is composed of three regional federations representing three main French geographic zones (Brittany in the West, the South West and Massif Central in the middle of France).