Many of those who have long-term positions in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies are used to scouring the web for news of pending initiatives that will increase adoption, boost buzz around blockchain technologies, and generally make digital currencies a more integral part of our lives.
Today analysts are talking about institutional buy-in from a pretty important financial partner of one of America’s biggest auto makers.
The General Motors Financial Company, according to a press release yesterday, plans to join something called the Spring Founding Industry Partners program in an initiative to combat fraud and pursue more robust identity verification.
SFIP has designed the Spring Protocol, a proprietary blockchain technology network that is going to help GMFC toward those goals.
In terms of America’s corporate landscape, GM Financial is nothing to sneeze at. It employs over 8000 people, has operating income of over $913 million per year, and stacks total assets of over $78 billion.
GM Financial helps its parent company, General Motors, to offer leasing and financing to millions of customers.
Its sign-on to the Spring Protocol program is a big deal.
“As the captive finance arm for General Motors and one of the world’s largest auto finance providers, we are continually innovating and evolving our fraud prevention and detection capabilities to better serve and protect our customers and dealers,” said Mike Kanarios, chief strategy officer at GM Financial according to a recent press statement.
Spring Labs CEO Adam Jiwan feels the project will help promote the kinds of synergy that are ideal in the New World of applying block chain to corporate practice
“We came together with the view that we could develop a series of use cases that would match some of (GMFC’s) core business priorities as a lender, or … GM as a parent company,” Jiwan reportedly said.
This new report is not the first time that GMFC has been in the news for innovating in blockchain. The company previously engaged with the Hyperledger system set up with Linux Foundation while the parent company has filed patent for blockchain in relation to autonomous or self-driving vehicles.
The auto industry is often looked at as a major indicator of America’s economy – for instance, after the 2008 financial crisis, the auto bailout was major news. Now the news that GM’s finance company is embracing blockchain can be seen as broader fodder for blockchain adoption in the American corporate world. At the same time, we recently reported that the US SEC may be thawing on certain types of cryptocurrency regulations. Keep an eye on all of this because a certain critical mass could propel cryptocurrencies into the mainstream this year.
