To streamline its global insurance payments business, German-based Allianz Group is betting on the use of crypto to have a token-based blockchain ecosystem.
Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE (AGCS), the Germany-based insurance giant, is reportedly working on a token-based blockchain ecosystem to facilitate instant cross-border insurance payments.
Using the power of blockchain, the company has big plans ahead to streamline is global insurance payments business, especially for its corporate customers. On Thursday, August 8, Forbes reported that Allianz is currently experimenting with different blockchain-based solutions, however, they have already developed the basic core infrastructure for this project.
An Allianz spokesperson said that his company plans to first have a pilot testing on a small scale. Once they are successful, they will look forward to scaling it on a global level. The spokesperson said:
“AGCS is further exploring blockchain technology to simplify and accelerate cross-border insurance payments for its corporate customers. A project team is in the advanced stages of development for a token-based electronic payment system to allow for frictionless, transparent and instantaneous money transfers for a range of different types [of] payments.”
Allianz Changes Its Views About Crypto Assets
Allianz executives have been giving quite contradictory statements about crypto assets in the past. Last year in December 2018, a time of massive crypto winter, CEO of Allianz Global Investors Andreas Utermann requested regulators to introduce a complete ban on digital assets.
On the other hand, Allianz’s Christian Weishuber said that his company is exploring options for providing cryptocurrency insurance. He said: “insurance for cryptocurrency storage will be a big opportunity […] digital assets are becoming more relevant, important and prevalent.”
According to a CoinDesk report earlier this year in April 2019, Allianz was supposedly testing an internal token to move the money among its global affiliates. Allianz was reportedly working with blockchain startup Adjoint on this project.
At that time, Oliver Volk, a blockchain expert at Allianz’s reinsurance unit, also confirmed the existence of such a project saying:
“Yes, we are thinking about a kind of Allianz token whereby money coming in will be converted to a token. But it’s a very big animal and we don’t know what kind of regulatory constraints there are.”
He further added that issuing an Allianz token would be further beneficial to get rid of FX constraints and other stuff we have to optimize, especially if you talk to certain currencies which we do not accept at our headquarters and have to be reconverted.”
Alan Cabello, the innovation program manager for central and eastern Europe at Allianz AGCS, said that this project was basically a business-to-business application. He added: “It’s essentially about the legal way of moving money from one side of the world to the other. Because of regulation and governance, etc., you need to move it from one entity to the next to the next – and that takes time.”