Second Ukraine Bank Launches Blockchain Partnership

Bank Alyans has become the second Ukrainian lender to partner with Attic Labs on a Blockchain project.
Bank Alyans has become the second Ukrainian lender to partner with Attic Labs on a Blockchain project.

Fintech company Attic Lab has partnered with a second Ukraine bank to integrate SmartMoney, a Blockchain-based banking system.

Bank Alyans will work with the startup on solutions based on SmartMoney’s private Blockchain. Source code, libraries and API will all be open source.

“Bank Alyans has become not only a client for us but a partner and like-minded associate in the construction of financial systems of the future,” Today News quotes Attic Lab CEO Sergey Vasilchuk as saying.

“We’re also planning a regulatory sandbox as well as prizes for the best apps based on the electronic crypto-hryvnia.”

SmartMoney already allows P2P transactions between mobile wallets, as well as smart contracts. In 2016, Alparibank entered into a similar deal with Attic Lab.

Ukraine has taken a concerted interest in Blockchain as its banking infrastructure suffers from high-profile teething problems.

Earlier this year, the country’s government was forced to nationalize its largest lender, Privatbank, amid warnings of “chaos” if nothing was done to guarantee deposits.

In December, the Ukrainian Stock Exchange also announced it would offer Bitcoin futures trading on the back of what it described as “quite high interest” from investors.

In so doing, Ukraine became the first regulated market in the world to offer the Bitcoin trading option.