An agency core banking application using blockchain technology
Date
2020
Authors
Kamau, John Kibathi
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Strathmore University
Abstract
Cut throat competition between various institutions in the financial sector in Kenya particularly banks have pushed them into adopting innovative ways to serve their customers and generate revenue. One of the innovations that banks have come up with is the use of agency banking channels to serve their customers. This channel has proved to be very successful of over the years since its launch and has seen many banks take up the channel. However, this channel has opened up a new avenue for frauds and theft by criminals. This has pushed the banks into adopting new security techniques to combat these criminals. Software related security mechanisms have been installed to curb fraud for example the use of Encryption techniques such as Data Encryption Standard (DES) encryption. Although it has shown great promise in securing end to end connection with the bank servers, Data Encryption techniques have multiple weaknesses that we hope the adoption of block chain technology will resolve. The purpose of this project was to come up with an agency banking application that will use block chain technology to assist banks in curbing the vice of fraudulent transactions initiated by fraudulent cards. The model works by replacing the current architecture is use and replacing it with one that uses block chain technology. In order to secure agency banking transactions, the transactions are stored in an immutable ledger which are then chained together to form the block chain. The block chain forms the database because it stores information in a digital ledger in data structures referred to as blocks. In the model, every bank maintains a copy of this Ledger to form a decentralized system that is more secure as opposed to the existing one that is central and is prone to security breaches. This blocks use hashing algorithm to identify each transaction securely. The network is a permissioned network hence only authorized nodes are allowed to process transactions. The model was tested and a transaction was sent to from an agent’s point of sale network to the peer to peer network to the validating nodes where it was successfully validated and the result want sent to the customer via the agent Point of Sale terminal.
Description
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Information Technology as a partial requirement for the award of a Master degree in Information Technology
Keywords
Blockchain Technology, Agency Core Banking, Banking Technology