Australian Bank and IBM Develop Blockchain For Insurance Industry

IBM and New Zealand-based bank ANZ reported the results of their Blockchain solution for insurance companies and brokers, Monday.

The Australian and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has completed a proof of concept using Blockchain to make data transfers more efficient and payment and reconciliation between brokers and insurers more transparent, the companies say.

Paul Goodwin, ANZ executive, said:

“Reconciling policy information and premium payments made by a broker to an insurer on behalf of customers is a slow and painful process.”

The solution was built in conjunction with New Zealand insurance provider Suncorp and findings were released in a white paper by the bank.

card

The proof of concept which uses hyper ledger fabric from IBM’s enterprise software has demonstrated success in three areas: the efficient transfer of data from quote origination to policy issuance; allocation of bulk payments from brokers to individuals policies and the replacement of manual to automated claims reporting.

Mike Smith  managing director of IBM New Zealand  added:

“The result is an interoperable network that could not only decrease policy costs and improve customer service, but also build a foundation for the introduction of other transformative technologies, such as artificial intelligence.”

The Blockchain solution enabled the transfer of bulk payments that are immutably recorded and tracked on the ledger and could facilitate an ecosystem with multiple insurers and multiple brokers in the future the, the company said.