Pakistan Banks Go Blockchain for Better Customer Experience and AML
The Pakistan Banks' Association (PBA), consisting of 31 conventional banks operating in Pakistan, has agreed to create a blockchain-based platform for Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures.
According to the Daily Times, the PBA signed a contract on March 2 to build the country’s first national eKYC banking platform that uses blockchain technology, which will assist in improving Anti-Money Laundering (AML) capabilities and combat terror financing, a project led by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
The PBA includes well-known international banks like Citibank, Deutsche Bank, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The main goal of the blockchain platform is to improve operational efficiency, especially during the onboarding process, resulting in a better customer experience.
The Avanza Group has been chosen to develop the eKYC platform, dubbed “Consonance,” which will allow member banks to share and standardize customer information via a decentralized and self-regulated network. However, banks may only access the customer data with their consent, enabling them to evaluate new and existing clients.
READ MORE: Ethereum: Vitalik Buterin Calls for Simpler Interfaces to Improve UX and Adoption
Pakistan recently enacted new laws to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) by 2025, joining other nations in the CBDC race. According to the new laws, electronic money institutions will receive licenses from the SBP for CBDC issuance.
Deputy Governor of SBP, Jameel Ahmad, praised the regulations, stating that they demonstrated the bank’s commitment to openness, technology adoption, and financial system digitization.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
