Ivan Tesfai
Corporate R&D Project Technical Coordination, RINA
I think this R&D initiative promisingly contributes to increase company know-how on the most innovative technologies in the market (AI and block-chain) in a highly quantitative data-driven sector such as finance and banking. Our engineering advisory role in audit, compliance and technology assessment during the design stage creates a win-win strategy for providers and consumers by triggering the fast adoption of cybersecurity/privacy/personal data protection best practices in the sector and guaranteeing the deployment of advanced yet solid innovative solutions that drive outstanding operational performance.
There is a strong need for novel and standardised techniques offering effective, accessible, fast, secure, privacy-preserving and smart financial transactions. However, financial institutions, expected as Critical Infrastructures (CI) are prone to critical problems which are becoming more catastrophic day by day. This is substantially due to the:
In the meantime, the blockchain industry is booming as it offers great advantages on reducing costs. Through the rollout of blockchain, it is estimated that an average 24-hour processing time per transaction would be slashed to 0.1 seconds, and average costs of up to €40 cut to just €5 (save between €13-18 billion per year in banking infrastructure costs) by 2022.
However, such a disruptive technology is not perfect as it has not only security and technological problems but also political, legal, socio-cultural, ethical, and psychological and standardisation barriers that should seriously be considered holistically. The main reason behind such a diverse impact is that blockchain raises the question of illegal acts in money trafficking.
Critical-Chains has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 833326 to create a holistic and adaptable framework including end users (customers) and financial authorities in an innovative triangular accountability model that integrates the underlying technologies and presents a novel “as-a-service” (XaaS) platform aiming to protect financial infrastructures against illegal money trafficking and fraud on FinTech e-operations.
The targeted groups are financial authorities including banks, financial market infrastructures (i.e. Central CounterParty clearing -CCPs), stock markets, insurance companies and customers (individuals, enterprises), who have the need for secure, easily-accessible, privacy-preserving, fast, effective and low-cost contracting and transaction services.
In the framework of Critical-Chains, RINA is in charge of providing its expertise in engineering advisory and support services to certification to perform of the Dissemination, Communication, Standardisation, Exploitation and Innovation Management of the project.
Moreover, we are involved also in the following engineering activities:
The underpinning concept of Critical-Chains is a holistic protection and augmentation of the value of the chain through accountable, blockchain-enabled, practical, secure, privacy preserving, scalable and effective "Secure & Smart Contracts" and "Secure Transactions" in banking, CCP and insurance sectors.
In conclusion, its framework and services will be deployed, tested and evaluated in banks, insurance companies and financial market infrastructures aiming to show the borderless realisation of financial transactions or contracts and delivering the concrete results and future perspectives and recommendations on new standards, legal and economic aspects and socio-psychological and ethical factors.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme
