BNP Paribas, the French multinational bank and financial services company, unveiled its new FinTech laboratory set up at its New York headquarters during a recently held blockchain hackathon.

CoinDesk reported that the 5,000 square foot Innovation Zone is on the 30th floor of BNP's offices and will focus on building blockchain solutions to employee problems. In due course, the lab will house the work of six task forces that will work on AI and big data, in addition to blockchain.

Speaking with CoinDesk, Bruno d-Illiers, BNP's chief operating officer of commercial investment banking, explained why the lab is open to all the employees, not just cryptographers and traditional leadership.

"We don't believe that innovation is just for the senior executives. We want to engage each and every staff member”, he said.

d-Illier said that the objective is to do more, particularly to disseminate the information about what the blockchain is about.

"Many people understand blockchain, but they don’t understand the impact it will have on our business model”, he added.

The lab hosted its inaugural project on September 07, which saw five groups developing blockchain proofs-of-concept over two days. The winner will be selected today, September 08, by a jury and will be granted additional support from BNP Paribas.