Coinfirm enters into a formal cooperation with PKO BP

Information security has for a time been an increasingly oft-discussed subject. Contributing to this is society’s growing awareness of the significance of data security—particularly when entrusting data to businesses and service providers. Further adding to the legitimacy of consumers’ concerns, Inspector General for Personal Data Protection is now taking a closer look at whether data security measures offered by various institutions are enough to guarantee citizens’ protection.

Coinfirm—a Polish-British company with many successful launches of innovative global projects under its belt, entered into a formal cooperation with PKO Bank Polski in march 2018. The contract governing this new alliance dictates that a new blockchain system be introduced as a distributed and decentralized data register. PKO Bank Polski will also be Poland’s first financial institution to test Coinfirm’s proprietary platform—Trudatum. Initially, this new banking technology will focus on authenticating bank documents and contracts as well as financial transactions. Trudatum records the information acquired in the process and then reliably stores it. Cryptographic authenticity is guaranteed by digital signatures.

“Blockchain could potentially revolutionize the entire financial sector and hence, we’re watching it very closely. Our aim is to understand and utilize it to the fullest possible extent. Blockchain does great as a long-term data carrier with the added bonus of anonymity and reliability making it a boon for banks”, remarked PKO’s Office for Innovation Director, Grzegorz Pawlicki.

Each document stored in the new blockchain system will be displayed as an unalterable excerpt secured by the bank’s private key. This will enable the client to remotely verify the authenticity of the documents presented to them and ensure that they were not tampered with. According to PKO Bank Polski, a newly created the Blockchain Competence Center will oversee the prospective implementation of the technology into the internal and external workings of the bank.

PKO Bank Polski is taking an important step toward a new and digitized banking with dramatically less red tape than presently. Coinfirm is also expanding into regions of Western Europe as well as the United States.