Japan Telco Giant Wants to Bank on Blockchain
Japanese telecommunications giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) has set its sights on blockchain to develop an application for recording new contract agreements using the technology.
In its patent application published online, NTT said the entire system is “a simple method… maintaining the mode of one electronic signature per transaction, and maintaining credibility.”
The firm has demonstrated how it intends to use blockchain to design a system to store contracts without allowing for documents to be altered. The technology, it said, will be utilized to both encrypt the contract and store those in a decentralized way to harmonize the verification process.
NTT said “the receiver of a transaction on an issued contract generates a transaction including its agreement on the contract and links the generated transaction to the contract transaction. Then, after all the involved parties link their transactions, the last transaction is returned to the contract-issuing party to close the chain of transactions.”
“The present invention uses a blockchain as evidence of a contract made among a plurality of parties. A contract here refers to a sales contract, a deed of transfer, an application, a consent agreement, or the like, and is a document describing the content of a contract made among two or more individuals or bodies,” it added.
Those who intend to engage in the deal would connect transactions to the primary digital contract transaction which would eventually be returned to the contract-issuing party to seal a bunch of transactions.
There would be an “agreement verification apparatus” once the deal is closed to ensure the contents of the contract is correct. Validation will be done by comparing the public keys used for electronic signature at the beginning of the blockchain with the ones used at the end.
Ahead of the announcement, NTT, the fourth biggest telephone operating company worldwide, said last year that emerging technologies including blockchain, internet of things, and artificial intelligence made information and communications technology (ICT) needs “more complex.”
This, as NTT revealed that Vantis Consulting Group became its first partner in Hong Kong to become part of its Global Management One (GMOne) Managed Services Partner Program, expanding the GMOne’s presence across the Asian region. This would allow Hong Kong entities to enjoy one-stop, seamless service portfolio.
“By leveraging their strong implementation track record and local expertise for deploying cloud business applications for enterprises, especially SAP applications, we will be able to expand our footprint in Asia and ensure that our end customers get the right services and support they need in their cloud migration journey,” Hirofumi Miyama, senior vice president of managed services at NTT, said at that time.
“We are proud to become the first Hong Kong partner for NTT Com’s GMOne managed services. The partnership cements our business objectives and helps us to better meet the ICT needs of our expanding pool of customers. It will definitely help us to build deeper relationships with our existing customers as they transform their business to become more digital and embrace new technological advances,” Rocky Lam, chief executive officer of Vantis, had said.