On Friday, Tencent initiated Weizhong Bank, or WeBank, and Jingyou Technology announced that they will build a blockchain-powered automobile database. The news was announced at Jingyou’s insurance technology conference, and will likely be used for claims and car servicing.
According to Chinese outlet Sohu WeBank, Weltmeister Automobile, Jingdong (JD.com) Automobile, and Jingyou made the announcement. The parties will collaborate to develop a system for car data across the industry. Using blockchain, they hope to streamline data sharing and build a verifiably accurate audit trail for use in insurance.
Jingyou and Weltmeister will reportedly provide their extensive data in insurance and vehicle models respectively. Meanwhile, WeBank will develop the blockchain-based information sharing system, and JD.com will explore applications.
Su Xiaokang, head of blockchain at WeBank, said: “The release of the first blockchain automobile database in the country has filled the market gap of a data-sharing platform […]. Blockchain technology is well integrated with automotive big data to improve the information level of the entire industry chain.”
WeBank is known as China’s first ‘digital bank’ and was initiated by tech giant Tencent in 2015. It is one of the firms behind blockchain consortium FISCO and its open-source platform BCOS. In just a year following the BCOS launch, it has reportedly served over 100 clients in various industries.
Weltmeister is a vehicle brand owned by WM Motors, which includes Baidu and Tencent as investors. The brand focuses on electric vehicles for smart cities. Meanwhile, JD.com is a leading retailer in the country and has its own open-source blockchain platform.
Though the firms claim this project is the first blockchain auto database in China, Mercedes Benz announced a similar initiative for used cars in Beijing. The manufacturer teamed up with startup PlatON to build a blockchain platform storing vehicle history data. In Singapore, Ocean Protocol and sgCarMart also partnered to use blockchain in the secondhand market.
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