BVVA and Santander to Enter EU Blockchain Alliance

BBVA and Banco Santander are among the first banks invited to a forum on 'blockchain' organized by the European Commission in Brussels, and subsequently, join the launch of the International Association for Applications of Blockchain (IATBA).

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Since April, the European Commission has been working on IATBA, which brings together 27 EU countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Ireland. IATBA’s ultimate aim is to set up a European Blockchain Services Infrastructure that will ensure the ease of use of international digital services, with the most elevated principles of security and protection."

BVVA and Santander are joining the platform and will be contributing to the promotion of blockchain technology implementation.  The IATBA, promoted from the public sphere, wants to incorporate those entities interested in the blockchain potential and distributed ledger technologies, known as DLT, for the transformation of digital services worldwide.

The primary purpose of the affiliation is to create E.U. blockchain control, alongside setting up the dispatch of EU- wide blockchain applications.

While the CEO of BBVA has recently shown some potential weaknesses of enterprise blockchain technologies, the bank has officially conducted tests on several blockchain products and services. In June, the bank cooperated with the Spanish oil and energy organization Repsol to test blockchain innovations, in particular Hyperledger and Ethereum.

BBVA highlights that it is one of the five banks invited by the European Commission to be part of this association, for their interest and experience in the use of these technologies. The European association could be legally established in the first quarter of 2019.

To test the use of blockchain technologies, BBVA did a $150 million loan on a private blockchain network through the cooperation of three subsidizing banks including French BNP Paribas and Japan's bank holding Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).

Santander is also willing to test and implement decentralized innovations. In July, Banco de Santander joined IBM's Blockchain Platform alongside four different banks and made a research group to get insights on the utilization of blockchain in securities exchanging.

Blockchain Blockchain Development Blockchain Application European Commission BBVA Santander IATBA