unchain.io, a Dutch software services provider, has successfully delivered a strategic finance application for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in partnership with enterprise software firm R3.
The KLM Digital Studio is meant to explore how new technologies like blockchain can enhance internal processes and discover potential business models across KLM. As a result of this exploration KLM Finance has set out to use blockchain to handle the intercompany settlements process of KLM with its subsidiaries. With the objective to simplify the accounting process in a secure and efficient manner, unchain.io worked in close co-operation with the KLM team, to provide the design and implementation of the settlement capability using R3’s Corda technology. Dominique Vijverberg, innovation specialist at KLM Finance: “After initial learnings in smaller projects with the Digital Studio, KLM Finance is happy to announce this project, which we see as strategic to simplify our financial processes and to set an example for future blockchain projects that are no longer ‘test’, but have real business impact.” Potential next steps in KLM’s journey to consortium thinking are connecting more subsidiaries to this distributed ledger based ecosystem.
Jelle van der Ploeg, CTO at unchain.io said, “Unchain’s mission is to provide organizations with solutions to simplify sharing data and transacting with their value chain. In the case of KLM, this means digitally transforming the settlement process with its subsidiaries. We’re extremely proud to work with KLM and R3 on this innovative project and look forward to further expanding the solution, offering value to KLM and its partners.”
The intercompany settlement application is built on R3’s blockchain platform called Corda. Cathy Minter, Chief Revenue Officer at R3, said: “Key to Corda’s success is the vibrant and diverse ecosystem of CorDapps. We built Corda to make picking up Corda and developing on it as simple as possible for experienced developers and we actively support our developer community. Unchain’s pilot will open up developing on Corda to even more firms.”
