Decentralized E-KYC Blockchain Network For Central Bank
Decentralized E-KYC Blockchain Network For Central Bank
Decentralized E-KYC Blockchain Network For Central Bank
https://doi.org/10.22214/ijraset.2023.49860
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue III Mar 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
Abstract: Know Your Customer or KYC processes are the backbones of a financial institution’s anti-money laundering
efforts. KYC processes are mandatory in most of Europe and India. Almost all countries have their own process for
identifying and keeping a record of their citizens like the USA has Social Security Protocol. According to current estimates,
the amount of KYC spending rose to up to $1.8 Billion in 2021 on a global level. Despite the importance of the
process, KYC continues to operate inefficiently. KYC processes are labor-intensive and time-consuming tasks. It is
estimated that 80% of KYC efforts go in gathering information and processing while only 20% of efforts are evaluating and
monitoring focused. This centralization of data is causing an inefficient KYC process and creating issues like :-
Misidentification of fraudulent data , Inability of tracking customers, customers entering fake data(address, age etc) ,
delayed processing time and very high cost of processing. Reimagining KYC Using Blockchain Technology will
enable seamless and secure data exchange at a fraction of the cost. A decentralized blockchain network will Facilitate
near real-time data exchange. Blockchain when used with other technologies can indicate great potential to help
organizations reduce the cost and time linked with the KYC process. The introduction of blockchain in KYC brings
data on a decentralized network which also has its own pros like distributed data collection ,higher operational efficiency ,
validation of accuracy of the information. The customer will build their profile on the DCT KYC network. There are multiple
options to store the data like Centralized encrypted servers, DCT platforms like IPFS(Interplanetary File
System). Customers will perform transactions with Financial Institutions by giving them access to users profile(
restricted non-appendable access),Using hashing and cryptographic processes the data would safely be called and
returned to the DCT network . Thus making sure the whole process is immutable .
Keywords : Decentralized (DCT) , Hashing , Cryptography, Blockchain, DCT KYC network
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Centralised e-KYC
Know your customer (aka KYC) is the regulatory and compliance obligation on the conventional banking and financial system, to
capture customer information before onboarding and providing any financial services to the customer. To say it in another way,
banks must assure themselves that their clients are genuinely who they claim to be. Banks may terminate business relationships with
a client if it refuses to meet binding KYC requirements. Banks need to oblige with KYC regulations to prevent money laundering
and understand the nature of the customer’s activities.
Traditionally, the KYC verification process has to be carried out by Individual banks Independently. For KYC, customers are
typically required to be physically present at the bank’s branch or on a video call to provide personal identification information,
such as passport or ID cards.
Procedures for identity verification include documents, non-documentary styles, or a combination of both.This process is
problematic for banks because it is highly cost – intensive, time consuming for the banks. The burden is suffered by the client, who
must respond to each request for KYC information or threat detainments to their deals. This is especially true for global and multi-
banked corporates who can admit large volumes of individual KYC requests from each of their different banks, putting strain on
their business connections.
India has made a commendable progress in digitization of this process. However, lack of bank standards and bank reservations
about sharing customer information with competitor banks limits the reusability of the data. Having a central utility collecting all the
data seems like a good idea. However, recent reports of leaks and misuses of personal data have lowered the confidence of both
banks and customers in solutions that involve central data collection. At the same time, if a client operates multiple accounts in
multiple banks, the disagreement grows indeed wider.
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue III Mar 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
A. Design
The architecture of MedRec is easily understood by analogy to the World Wide Web. The web consists of three elements: An HTTP
server that provides access to local data, the HTML protocol by which access is obtained and web elements are defined, and a
browser that forms the interface.
Ideally, anyone and everyone could be a server and web browsers can draw from multiple ones to create a presentation. The World
Wide Web is by design a network rather than a client server architecture even though in practice there are dominant servers. In
MedRec, the language is a set of contracts commenced by patients that define what entities or parties can access which records .
There are at present three types of contracts and more can be created. The simplest is one that asserts that entity B can access the
records of patient A. More complicated ones allow for intermediary healthcare proxies, or allow a pharmacy to access all
prescription records for patient A from any healthcare provider. We call the server equivalent a “full node.” Full nodes are
administrative members of the network. They can append blocks to the chain, admit new administrative members, and distribute
notifications submitted to or originated by them. Examples include requests for participation in a clinical or epidemiological study
or record changes.
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
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We use proof of authority to append blocks and the addresses of holders of that authority are also stored on chain4 . New members
with those rights are voted in by a majority of existing members. This facility is part of the Ethereum Blockchain5 . The interface is
a local app run on a PC or phone . It allows generation of contracts and polls providers for notifications. There is an interface for a
provider and one for a patient. Patient interfaces are light nodes and may or may not contain a copy of the blockchain. Third parties
can also run an equivalent light node. That may include research organizations, pharmacists, patients’ relatives, etc.
FIGURE 1.1
B. Operation
In this section, we show the work flow for three potential network constituents: healthcare providers, patients, and third parties such
as pharmacies and research organizations.
Every user in the MedRec network installs the software and creates a login account. New providers make proposals to a special
smart contract that orchestrates the addition and removal of providers to the network. Existing providers vote on whether to accept
these proposals. Patients form relationships by sharing their account ID (an Ethereum address) with medical providers. Once a
relationship with a provider is formed, patients can enable other accounts with the power to view portions of the medical data stored
by that provider.
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 | 2005
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue III Mar 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
Anyone can join as a light node and be the predicate in a contract. But only providers can authorize contracts and append to the
blockchain. Providers are trusted entities but we inoculate the system against intrusions of their internal systems by requiring
majority voting. We argue that Ethereum-supported proof of authority mechanism is a robust solution. The overhead of running a
full node is small both in terms of management and allocation of resources. Conversely, the advantages are large. The open-source
model allows us to evolve with needs and community desires. These issues are assertions that will be tested at scale in real use. A
second issue is the nature of the patient interface. We suspect that individual management of personal data is a task akin to
management of a retirement plan. They are similar in that when we are young and healthy, we likely dedicate little energy to either
retirement or healthcare. It has been extensively demonstrated that people devalue long term or low probability events. A good
interface may ameliorate this.
To date, the interface we have implemented is optimized to be simple and encouraging. It allows for contract creation and
deployment, visualization of the user’s network and the ability to fetch and view data from the remote database. As we add features
that are common in commercial healthcare interfaces, we have to keep an eye that the system does not become a task to use. This
will evolve in time.
D. Conclusion
Proposed is a blockchain-based system that serves a societal need without the imposition of visible transactions or an application-
specific coinage. We fill-in a network for a service and use the blockchain to manage that service. There is no definite economics
associated with the work, nor any view of how society is organized. The general nature of the solution is biddable to other cases
where an open-source, distributed model is useful.
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
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A hash function is a fine function that converts a numerical input value into another compressed numerical value.
The input to the hash function is of an arbitrary length but affair is always of a fixed length. For eg MD, SHA1, SHA- 2, SHA- 3,
RIPEMD, and Whirlpool.
B. Hashing in blockchain
Blockchains hash each sale before speeding them together into blocks. Hash pointers link each block to its precursor, by holding a
hash of the data in the former block. Because each block links to its precursor, data in the blockchain is inflexible. The mincing
function means that a change in any sale will produce an entirely different hash, which will alter the hashes of all posterior blocks.
To propagate a change across the blockchain, 51 of the network would have to agree to it. Hence, the term “ 51 attack ”.
Different blockchains use different cryptography algorithms. The Bitcoin blockchain uses the SHA256 algorithm, which produces
a 32- byte hash. Dogecoin and Litecoin both use Scrypt, which is one of the briskly and lighter cryptography algorithms.
Important Characteristics For A Strong Hashing Algorithm:-
A cryptographic hashing algorithm must fulfill these specific criteria to be effective:
The same input must always induce the same yield. Anyhow of how numerous times you put the data through the mincing
algorithm, it must constantly produce the same hash with identical characters in the string.
The input can not be derived or calculated using the affair. There should be no way to reverse the mincing process to see the original
data set.
Any change in the input must produce an entirely different affair. Indeed changing the case of one character in a data set should
produce a hash that's significantly different.
The hash should be of a fixed number of characters, anyhow of the size or type of data used as an input.
Creating the hash should be a fast process that does n’t make heavy use of calculating power.
Figure 1.2
Append : Padding bits
First step of our hashing function begins with appending bits to our original message, so that its length becomes the same as
the standard length required for the hash function. We proceed by adding a few bits to the message that we have in hand. The
length of the message should be exactly 64 bits less than a multiple of 512 after addition of the calculated bits.
M + P + 64 = n x 512
i.e M = length of original message
P = padded bits
Figure 1.3
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue III Mar 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
The bits that are appended to the message, should begin with ‘1’ and the following bits must be ‘0’ till they are exactly
64 bits less than the multiple of 512.
Append : Length bits
we now append our length of bits which is equivalent to 64 bits, to the overall message to make the entire thing an exact
multiple of 512.We add the remaining 64 bits by taking the modulo of the message given.
i.e. the one which is without the padding, with 2³².
The message obtained is then appended to the padded bits and we get the entire message block, which must be a multiple of 512.
Initialize the buffers
A message block is now created on which computations are carried out to figure out the final hash. we need certain default values to
be initialized for this step.
a = 0x6a09e667
b = 0xbb67ae85
c = 0x3c6ef372
d = 0xa54ff53
e = 0x510e527f
f = 0x9b05688c
g = 0x1f83d9ab
h = 0x5be0cd19
There are more 64 values that need to be included which will act as keys and are denoted by the word ‘k’.
Courtesy - SHA-2 Wikipedia
Now ,these values are utilized to compute the hash.
D. Compression Function
This step is the main part of the hashing algorithm . The entire message block of ‘n x 512’ bits long is divided into ‘n’ chunks of 512
bits and each of these 512 bits are then put through 64 rounds of operations and the output obtained is fed as input for the next round
of operation repeatedly.
Figure 1.4
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
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In the image above it is clearly seen that the 64 rounds of operations are performed on a 512 bit message. It is observed
that two inputs that are sent in are W(i) & K(i), for the first 16 rounds we further break down 512 bit messages into 16 parts each
of 32 bit but after that we need to calculate the value for W(i) at each step.
W(i) = Wⁱ⁻¹⁶ + σ⁰ + Wⁱ⁻⁷ + σ¹
where,
σ⁰ = (Wⁱ⁻¹⁵ ROTR⁷(x)) XOR (Wⁱ⁻¹⁵ ROTR¹⁸(x)) XOR (Wⁱ⁻¹⁵ SHR³(x))
σ¹ = (Wⁱ⁻² ROTR¹⁷(x)) XOR (Wⁱ⁻² ROTR¹⁹(x)) XOR (Wⁱ⁻² SHR¹⁰(x))
ROTRⁿ(x) = Circular right rotation of 'x' by 'n' bits
Figure 1.5
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As consensus over a problem takes place, consensus algorithms take into consideration that some processes and systems will act
maliciously and that only a portion of the nodes will respond. They also consider some communications will be lost during
transmission of data over the network. However, the available nodes should be able to carry out the consensus process
,even if some of the nodes don't work . For example, an algorithm may require that at least 51% of nodes respond to achieve
consensus or agreement on a data value or network state.
This ensures consensus is achieved with the available nodes or resources. The mechanism also ensures the integrity of decisions
made by the remaining nodes in the fault-tolerant system.
B. Proof of Work
The PoW algorithm is one of the first algorithms created for consensus. First introduced in 1993, however it was
reintroduced in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto founder and creator of bitcoin. In Proof of Work nodes solve complex
mathematical puzzles as fast as possible. The miner who solves it in the least amount of time gets the reward and his block
is added to the blockchain
Blockchains based on the PoW algorithm, miners who are also known as participant nodes must solve a complex mathematical
problem by finding a cryptographic hash of a particular block in order to prove the work done by them is legit , only then the block
is confirmed.
The miners do this by taking data from a block header as an input, and continuously running this data through a cryptographic hash
function. Small changes are made to the input data to increase or decrease the difficulty of the mathematical puzzle by including an
arbitrary number called a nonce. Every block has a unique nonce. Difficulty of the mathematical puzzle is decreased when there are
less miner nodes active on the network, on the other hand the nonce value is increased when traffic on the network is high.
When the miner finds the solution that leads to consensus, they get a block reward, which generally is tokens of that native network.
Doing all this work results in high energy consumption . Therefore many networks are trying to switch from POW to Proof of Stake,
POW is very hazardous for the environment.
Nonetheless, the PoW algorithm continues to be one of the main consensus algorithms because
Figure 1.6
It maintains network security and is highly resistant to attacks from hackers like DDoS attacks, sybil attacks, replay attacks etc. It's
also one of the first consensus algorithms and has proven to be an excellent choice for maintaining a high level blockchain.
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Figure 1.7
D. Merkle Trees
Merkle trees, which are also known as Binary hash trees, are an extensive sort of data structure in computer science. In bitcoin and
many other cryptocurrencies, they're used to encrypt blockchain data a lot more efficiently and securely. It's a mathematical data
structure that is made up of hashes of various data blocks that collectively summarize all the transactions in a block.
It also enables fast and secure content verification across big datasets and verifies the steadiness and content of the data.
E. Merkle Root
A Merkle root is a simple mathematical technique for confirming the facts on a Merkle tree. They're used in cryptocurrency to
ensure that data blocks sent through a peer-to-peer network are intact ,damaged- free , and not altered. They play a very important
role in the computation required to keep cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether running smoothly.
Figure 1.8
Working of Merkle Tree: A Merkle tree sums up all transactions in a block and generates a digital fingerprint of the entire set of
operations, allowing the user to verify whether it includes a transaction in the block or not.
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
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Merkle trees are made by hashing pairs of nodes repeatedly until one hash remains; this hash is known as the Merkle Root .
They're built using the bottom-up approach, using Transaction IDs, which are hashes of individual transactions.
Each non-leaf node is the hash of its previous hash, and every leaf node is a hash of transactional data present in the block
Merkle trees and blockchain work simultaneously .If a blockchain network didn't include Merkle Trees, per se, every node on the
network would have to retain a complete copy of every single Bitcoin transaction ever made.Any authentication request on the
network would require a huge amount of data to be transferred over the network.
Merkle Trees are a solution to this issue. They hash records in accounting, separating the proof of data from the data itself.
Proving that giving a tiny amount of data across the network is all that is required for a transaction to be valid.
Furthermore, it enables you to demonstrate that both ledger variations are alike in terms of nominal computer power and network
bandwidth.
Validate the data's integrity: It can be used in validating the data's integrity effectively.
Takes little disk space: Compared to any other data structures, the Merkle tree takes up very little disk space.
Tiny information across networks: Merkle trees can be broken down into small pieces of data for verification purposes.
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VII. RESULTS
Different research papers are studied to understand how different system architectures can provide better or worse efficiency for the
verification process
Based on 0ur research done during the proposed work following interpretations are made :
The cost for KYC verification is drastically reduced due to the use of a decentralized platform
The processing time for the data is very low as compared to traditional KYC verification process
D – KYC provides a transparent and extremely high security platform which is also capable to protect data privacy for KYC
verification, which is missing in the current system
D-KYC when used in combination with other technologies such as AI can showcase high potential
An industry's future lies in total digital transformation, which can only be accomplished through infrastructure changes. To improve
operational efficiency, core processes must be modified. This can only be achieved by being welcoming to new and riotous
technologies. The main goal of the solution proposed by us was to reimagine the existing traditional KYC process. This proposed
paper gives a solution to the problem of redundancy and inefficiency in the current KYC process, lowering the system's operational
costs drastically.
We also eliminate the presence of a single point of failure by utilizing a blockchain-based approach. Blockchain is a game-changing
technology, and its applications are expanding exponentially. Implementing a blockchain application for kyc document verification
provides proof of identity of the customers on banks and pellucid access to all or any of the banks in the blockchain network,
ensuring quick access to the kyc document while also providing greater security. By doing so, we can lower the cost of maintaining
the document from the centralized organization.
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