"The purpose of the SAFBC is to assimilate and demonstrate the transformative potential of blockchain technology for the South African financial industry. The consortium aims to educate and to bring the benefits of blockchain technology to the industry for the benefit of the entire country."
Eugene heads up Sybrin’s business unit for Emerging Technology, Automated Clearing House (ACH), and Central Banks, and previously represented the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), as observer on the consortium. In addition to having been the Chair of the Virtual Currency and Distributed Ledger Working Group at the SARB, Eugene was also the Technology Lead for Virtual Currencies.
The members of the SAFBC include 22 financial service heavyweights. www.safbc.co.za/members
The SAFBC objectives are to:
- Assimilate – Continuously learn about blockchain technology.
- Educate – Bring others from our respective institutions and the country at large along with us on this learning journey.
- Demonstrate – Prove the benefits of blockchain technology and of having a blockchain consortium.
The SAFBC goals are to:
- Explore multiple blockchain platforms (currently Ethereum, Chain, Hyperledger, Corda).
- Start exploration of these platforms with the simplest financial asset: Cash (which has no maturity date nor interest rate associated with it). This will be a precursor to any other asset that is issued on the blockchain.
- Investigate identity management on a blockchain.
- Create a user interface to expose our work to those that are non-technical.
- Evaluate the performance of the various blockchain platforms in terms of scalability, security, and privacy.