The Capital Markets Authority of Kenya (CMA Kenya) has announced the admission of Belrium Kenya Limited to the Regulatory Sandbox launched in March 2019.

Belrium Blockchain Kenya becomes the first blockchain solution to join the regulatory sandbox and test its e-KYC solution.

The Belrium Kenya solution is a blockchain-based and shareable know your customer (eKYC) solution for capital markets intermediaries and investors.

The Belrium blockchain is a hybrid of a public and private blockchain offering transparency to regulators and institutions looking to adopt blockchain

Any transactions that happen on the Belrium blockchain has a legal identity on all the transactions. However, this identity is only made public to the transacting institutions as well as other institutions required by law to monitor such institutions such as capital markets authorities and central banks.

The solution is also able to offer legal identity across other blockchains including the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains among others.

The test will be executed in a period of nine (9) months. The Authority said it will closely monitor the firms admitted during the testing period, relying on feedback from investors, system logs and periodic reports.

Belrium Kenya’s parent company, Belfrics Malaysia Sdn Bhd, is a reporting institution with the Bank Negara Malaysia.

The CMA Kenya Acting Chief Executive, Mr. Wyckliffe Shamiah, said:

“We are encouraged to note the appetite for the Regulatory Sandbox among fintech firms and innovators within and beyond Kenya’s borders. This underscores the need for stronger coordination with financial sector regulators and other government agencies to ensure that there are no gaps or overlaps. Additionally, such coordination will ensure that scalable solutions touching on multiple sectors can be put in place where necessary.

The developments cement the Authority’s efforts to leverage technology to drive efficiency in the capital markets value chain.”

So far, only 6 companies have been admitted to test their innovations via the sandbox with only one exiting and entering the wider market.

The admission of a blockchain solution in Kenya into a regulatory sandbox is a significant move as adoption of cryptcurencies in the country remains one of the highest on the African continent.

It will interesting to see if the blockchain solution successfully exits the sandbox and rolls out the blockchain solution to the wider market.