UK Government Awards First G-Cloud Blockchain PaaS Agreement
The U.K. government has awarded the first G-Cloud blockchain platform-as-a-service (PaaS) agreement to Credits for the supply of secure Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) to its public sector.
The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) made the award for U.K. public sector organizations. It will enable central and local government and the devolved administrations, health, education, and emergency services, to use Credits’ PaaS.
The platform will supply them with distributed ledger technology (DLT) software and cloud-based services. Secure and scalable blockchains power enterprise and public sector applications would be built by these services. It will enable the building and deployment of secure, enterprise-grade and interoperable DLT services.
According to Deloitte, blockchain can help address inefficiencies and increase effectiveness in public systems. It can help in back-office functions and to reduce frauds and errors.
The U.K. has been considering government applications of blockchain technology for some time. In April, Minister for Cabinet Office Matt Hancock said they are supporting the Alan Turing Institute with £10 million. The support is to investigate digital currencies and DLTs for possible use cases for blockchains in government.
Hancock said:
Think about the Student Loans Company tracking money all the way from Treasury to a student’s bank account. Or the Department for International Development tracking money all the way to the aid organization spending the money in [the] country.
Credits said the idea is to use DLT to create more powerful and robust identity management tools. It is also to preserve data security for government departments and agencies.
On the new agreement, CEO & Co-Founder of Credits, Nick Williamson, said:
Credits is pleased to have been awarded a place on the G-Cloud 8 platform. We are excited by the huge potential of Distributed Ledger Technology for many different government and public sector applications, and are looking forward to working with UK public sector organisations to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their services for UK taxpayers.
Recently, Credits won ‘Best Blockchain Startup’ at the 2016 Europas Awards. A Credits’ partner, UKCloud (formerly Skyscape), powers its G-Cloud BaaS which runs on a secure cloud infrastructure.
The G-Cloud agreement follows Credits’ 2015 success in supplying its blockchain framework to the Isle of Man Government and the launch of its public blockchain PaaS in April.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
