The Korea Financial Investment Association (Kofia), an industry trade group in South Korea, on Tuesday, said that securities firms and merchant banks in the country have commercialized blockchain technology to build a more secured infrastructure, Korea Herald reported.

In an opening speech, Kofia Chairman Hwang Young-key said that the initiative signified the first time that financial investment firms opened a decentralized platform to markets intended for customer security. He emphasized on the potential of blockchain technology to enhance infrastructure security and risk management, while reducing costs in the financial industry as a whole.

Last year, Kofia launched a blockchain consortium, which now includes 26 financial investment companies and 5 blockchain companies.

“Chain ID” – a platform based on the consortium’s private blockchain platform and smart contract technology – would enable a customer to make a user authentication process without the need for a separate firm to ensure customer protection.

Eleven local securities firms will trial the blockchain-based security platform initially. The platform would help save time and effort as a customer going through a blockchain-based user authentication in one of the firms, would not be required to repeat the same process in the other firms.

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