Today Dutch bank ING
announced its latest results with an upbeat performance with a first quarter net profit of €1.1 billion ($1.25bn) including increased lending of €8.7 billion ($9.7 bn) and net deposit inflows of €4.8 billion ($5.4 bn). The bank’s blockchain initiatives were worthy of a notable mention by CEO Ralph Hamers. The company has been active in progressing Zero-Knowledge Proofs, an important privacy tool used in blockchains.
“We took several steps in blockchain and distributed ledger technology to further improve our offering and client experience,” said Hamers in the statement. “For example, we made codes we had created to ensure data privacy even faster, safer and easier to use with a new release called Bulletproofs. These codes, which are open source, were successfully used in the first quarter in a proof of concept with a university in the Netherlands.”
Privacy breakthroughs
A typical example of Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) involves the ability for someone to prove they are of drinking age without providing their date of birth. Last year ING unveiled
Zero-Knowledge Set membership which would enable someone to prove they have a salary within a certain range without disclosing it, or that they live within the EU without saying which country.
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