Atom Bank eyes blockchain to build better mortgages

UK FinTech Atom Bank is teaming with Newcastle University on a three-year project which focuses on the design of better digital banking services.

Dubbed FinTrust, the initiative, involving computer science, psychology and banking experts, is funded by a £1.2 million grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council as part of an £11 million campaign to support research into accessing and using personal data.

Atom’s blockchain and crypto-statistics project is one of two Knowledge Transfer Projects that the challenger bank is working on, funded by Innovate UK and managed by the Knowledge Transfer Network.

“We will use the outputs from the research to inform and improve the design of future innovative products and services,” says Edward Twiddy, Chief Innovation Officer at Atom Bank.

“One of the first applications of the research will be in the development of our blockchain to build better mortgages, a major innovation project drawing on blockchain expertise from Newcastle University’s Computer Science department and crypto-statisticians at Durham University’s Department of Mathematical Sciences.”