ICONLOOP and SK Inc. C&C Sign MOU to Jointly Develop Blockchain Business for the Financial Sector
Moving beyond financial blockchain services that have so far been confined to areas such as authentication, insurance claims and internal document management, the two companies will jointly analyze the blockchain platforms and services each of them holds, and identify priority business areas for blockchain adoption based on SK Inc. C&C's services across its major financial domains.
Together with SK Inc. C&C, ICONLOOP will develop blockchain service models tailored to individual companies in the non-banking financial sector — insurers, securities firms and card companies — in addition to its existing banking business. Non-banking financial institutions offer a wide variety of products while operating at a smaller scale than the first-tier banks, which makes them well suited to developing blockchain service models and commercializing them quickly. For example, a blockchain service could be developed selectively for automobile insurance claims alone, or applied to areas such as card companies' merchant contract management and marketing (loyalty points) support.
ICONLOOP and SK Inc. C&C will also form a joint task force for financial blockchain business in order to combine the two companies' technologies and services. ICONLOOP brings CHAIN ID, the joint blockchain authentication service of the Korea Financial Investment Association, along with management of financial investment product transactions using that platform, as well as the capability to build blockchain insurance platforms. SK Inc. C&C, drawing on its experience implementing blockchain-based ID authentication, logistics management and electronic document distribution, has launched an "enterprise blockchain platform." More recently it has been offering a CaaS (Coin as a Service) platform, which makes it easy to issue gift certificates and local currencies, in both cloud and on-premise environments.
"We expect this MOU to be an opportunity for ICONLOOP's blockchain platform to spread not only in Korea but also to financial institutions worldwide, on the basis of SK Inc. C&C's financial-sector know-how and technical capabilities," said ICONLOOP CEO JH Kim.
"Securing a diverse range of platform technologies and service capabilities across industries and business types is essential to the rapid expansion of the blockchain market and ecosystem," said Woojin Kang, Head of Financial Business Division 2 at SK Inc. C&C. "Through this MOU we will raise our blockchain platform and service capabilities another level, broaden service models for the financial industry, and take the lead in creating social value through blockchain technology."
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