The EU Is Building a 'Financial Transparency Gateway' with Blockchain

The executive arm of the European Union has revealed it is currently building a blockchain-based gateway designed to share information on listed companies.

The disclosure came from Valdis Dombrovskis, vice president of the European Commission and European Commissioner for the Euro and Social Dialogue, in response to a question from MEP Antanas Guoga on the state of the commission's work with blockchain and cryptocurrencies last month.

After touching on the push to gather more information from exchange and wallet services, Dombrovskis pointed to new plans to fund blockchain pilot projects.

As CoinDesk reported in April, the European Commission is spending hundreds of thousands of euros to put together an "observatory" through which it can test possible public-sector applications of the tech.

One of those, according to Dombrovskis, is a project centered around collecting and sharing information from public companies within the EU with the aim of boosting transparency. What's more, the commissioner indicated that the wider pilot effort is being backed by €850,000 (just over $1 million) in funds.

He wrote in his response:

"[T]he commission is currently working on developing a [distributed ledger technology]-based European Financial Transparency Gateway (connecting and making available data listed companies must report to national databases) and a European Blockchain Observatory/Forum."

Dombrovskis also revealed that the commission is planning to launch a "Blockchains for Social Good" contest – a competition that would be held in conjunction with the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation initiative.

European Commission image via VanderWolf Images/Shutterstock.com