Mashreq Bank and Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) have come together to launch the region’s first Know-Your-Customer (KYC) blockchain data-sharing platform.

The platform, which is now live, will allow licensed businesses and corporates in Dubai to open digital bank accounts instantly.

The KYC initiative – part of a partnership formed in July last year between DIFC and Mashreq and in association with DIFC’s incubated Fintech firm norbloc – is the first-of-its-kind programme in the Middle East market, according to a statement.

Speaking about the initiative, Arif Amiri, CEO, DIFC Authority, said:  “As the leading financial centre in the MEASA region, we take great pride in continuously enhancing and evolving the DIFC ecosystem in order to provide a world-class environment for our partners and community to conduct business. This initiative provides financial institutions and businesses with a platform to seamlessly undertake operations.”

The platform, which grew from an initial ‘Proof of Concept’ to offer its current live blockchain experience, aims to remove the existing paper-based KYC processes and make the ease of conducting business faster for new companies in the UAE by introducing new fintech solutions such as this one.

The KYC data prepared by DIFC will be shared via blockchain technology with Mashreq, with the consent of the customer, simplifying the process of opening a bank account making it a scalable ecosystem solution that will be made available to all qualified financial institutions and licencing authorities.

This move will add to the Smart Dubai 2021 initiative, which hopes to make Dubai 100 per cent digital by going paperless in 2021.