South Korean Consortium enables Blockchain security upgrade

Korea Financial Investment Association (Kofia) has announced the implementation of Chain ID, a blockchain identification platform where securities firms and merchant banks can securely share customer information for online identification.

Kofia chairman Hwang Young-key explained, during a conference on Tuesday, that the decentralized identification service was developed using smart contracts and the private blockchain platform used by a consortium of investment companies and blockchain startups led by Kofia. In addition, customers can use their smartphones to do user authentication without the need for a separate firm to ensure their protection.

The consortium enables the collaboration between 21 financial companies and five blockchain technology to develop blockchain solutions for the sector.

According to a Korea Herald report, the service of blockchain-based security platform  will be available in 11 local securities firms out of 56 in Korea.

Specifically, the service will allow customers to use and share their blockchain-based certificates and data amongst all financial institutions that are part of the Kofia consortium and will eliminate the need  for verification from a central authority such as the Korea Information Certificate Authority (KICA).

Chain ID, developed by Seoul-based blockchain startup theloop, will be launched  in November via Android and iOS apps before getting rolled out as desktop versions.