Banco Santander Reveals Blockchain Identity Project

Banking giant Banco Santander has joined forces with 9 other Spanish banks and firms to develop a blockchain-based self-managed digital identity system, the firm said in a press release on 5 November.

Known as Dalion, the group has already completed the proof-of-concept trial of its new ID solution, which worked “satisfactorily”, and is now going to launch the second phase of development and testing this month. The goal of the project is to create a “secure and reliable” ID platform, accessible through a mobile device, that will give its users reliable control over their personal data. The press release reads:

“The project, including Banco Santander, Bankia, BME, CaixaBank, Inetum, Liberbank, Línea Directa Aseguradora, Mapfre, Naturgy and Repsol, and also the Alastria consortium, will give users control over their personal data, making digital identity self-managed by each person in a secure and reliable manner a reality.”

The Dalion group expects to complete the second phase of testing in the next six months, which would allow them to roll out the product in a live production environment in May 2021. Through the use of blockchain technology the firms are hoping to make user registrations more efficient, by removing the need to fill in “tedious” forms. The press release further reads:

“Self-managed identity enables people to have their personal data in a single digital identity, backed by the companies involved and stored on their own mobile device. Users may decide who to share the data with at any time in a fast, simple, secure process, in order to take up any service with no need to fill in tedious forms.”

The project is currently based on the Alastria digital identity model, which uses Ethereum and Quorum blockchain infrastructure to handle the transfer of user IDs, in accordance with Spanish and EU regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation. Alastria is a multi-sector Spanish consortium, composed of 600 partners, that aims to establish a “public permission-based blockchain infrastructure”.

Being the biggest bank in Spain, Santander has been supporting the development of blockchain technology for a while now. Back in September 2019, the bank became the first organization to use blockchain to manage every part of a bond task, by using an ERC-20 token to depict a $20 million debt issuance and then settling it with other ERC-20 tokens that depicted cash held in custody.