General Motors Partners With Blockchain Startup to Check Identity Fraud

U.S. carmakers General Motors, through its financing arm, General Motors Financial is working with blockchain startup Spring Labs to improve data management and prevent identity fraud in the auto industry.

According to a press release published on Monday, Feb. 11, the agreement will see GM Financial become a member of Spring Labs’ Spring Founding Industry Partners (SFIP) Program.

The SFIP program Spring Lab says “will drive improved data management standards to help address critical auto finance industry issues like identity verification and synthetic identity fraud.” It currently has about 20 member organizations who collaborate on research, development, and implementation of Spring Protocol.

Mike Kanarios, Chief Strategy Officer at GM Financial responded:

“As the captive finance arm for General Motors and one of the world’s largest auto finance providers, we are continually innovating and evolving our fraud prevention and detection capabilities to better serve and protect our customers and dealers.”

According to blockchain news site Coindesk, co-founder and CEO Adam Jiwan said via a spokesperson that the firm is actively exploring the development of auto finance and GM specific use cases, in addition to the identity verification products being developed.

Jiwan in the statement confirmed that the partnership will see Spring Labs and GM Financial use its blockchain network to develop solutions that will address vexing economic problems such as identity fraud. The Spring blockchain network is expected to go live in early 2020 after a private beta testing available to its partners around the third quarter of 2019.

Spring Labs recently welcomed about a dozen finance and technology firms to the SFIP program including as SoFi, OnDeck Capital, Avant, GreenSky, Funding Circle, BlueVine, Foundation, Upgrade, Fundbox, and Better Mortgage.

As Smartereum reported, Spring Labs raised close to $15 million in a seed investment round led by August Capital.

General Motors for its part are making efforts towards blockchain innovation internally and in the auto industry. As reported, pioneered a blockchain network for automobile manufacturers along with BMW, BMW, Ford, and Renault. The initiative known as MOBI—Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative—is spearheading efforts towards a new mobility ecosystem by creating a common technical standard and API to help payment and data-sharing possible between cars.

Riccardo Lopp is a writer specializing in Crypto, ethereum and whole blockchain ecosystem. His background is in economics and statistics.

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