Global professional services firm Accenture is working with major global firms including Mastercard to introduce a blockchain-based circular supply chain, according to a press release published on Feb. 25. An active user of blockchain and digital ledger technology, Accenture now intends to employ the tech as a key component to boost the circular supply chain. The term circular supply chain encompasses all stages on the supply chain, from the beginning to the end, in order to eliminate waste and improve sustainability for the environment. Within the announced initiative, Accenture is collaborating with major global companies including cloud computing firm Amazon …

Germany’s major state-owned bank KfW and Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Finance will test a blockchain application for use in public financial management, according to a statement posted Monday, Dec. 17. KfQ, ranked in 2017 as the country’s third largest bank by total assets, had also previously signed an agreement with the Burkinabe government in June 2018, providing the country with a credit of €7 million ($7.9 million) to finance water supply and sanitation areas. According to the recent blockchain-related announcement, TruBudget, an open source app developed by KfW, will be tested in Burkina Faso, Africa within the next six months …

Global management consultancy firm Accenture has deployed a distributed ledger (DLT) platform created to manage and track software licenses, a press release reveals Monday, Nov. 12. To develop the solution for software management, Accenture has partnered with Digital Assets, a U.S.-based company providing DLT products for financial institutions. The new app uses Digital Assets’ smart contract language, or DAML — a modeling language built specifically for distributed ledgers. According to the release, the platform will help track software licenses all the way down from their origination to purchase. Accenture also stresses that the DLT-driven app will help major firms avoid …

Global management consultancy firm Accenture revealed a new blockchain tool in a press release Oct. 22, its second in a month focusing on interoperability. A week after announcing a supply chain partnership with Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank, Accenture said its latest offering facilitated existing enterprise blockchain systems to integrate with one another. Specifically, blockchain platform Digital Asset can now work in tandem with R3’s Corda platform, while Hyperledger Fabric and JPMorgan’s Quorum form another interoperable pair. Discussing the two separate solutions, which the company has already tested, managing director and Global Blockchain Lead David Treat described them as a “game …

Global management consultancy firm Accenture announced it had partnered with a subsidiary of Thailand’s oldest bank on a new blockchain tool aimed at supply chains in a press release Wednesday, Oct. 17. In the latest implementation of the technology for Accenture, the company partnered with Siam Commercial Bank’s fintech subsidiary Digital Ventures Co. Ltd on the blockchain solution, which has already gone live with its first clients. Known as Procure-to-Pay or B2P, it leverages R3’s Corda technology as its basis, the release confirms. Divyesh Vithlani, head of Accenture’s Financial Services practice in the ASEAN region commented: “The most exciting part …

A recent study by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a post-trade financial services firm, has found that distributed ledger technology (DLT) is scalable enough to support daily trade volumes of the U.S. equity market, according to a press release published Oct. 16. The blockchain scaling problem is growing along with the increasing popularity and public awareness of cryptocurrencies as there is a risk the technology will not be able to keep up with demand. The largest cryptos Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) use limited sized blocks to process transactions. The more transactions that are performed, the more data …

Iran-based malware that demands a digital ransom in cryptocurrencies is on the rise and will further escalate in the present geopolitical climate, according to a report published by global management consulting firm Accenture on August 7. After two years of analysis, Accenture Security iDefense predicts that emerging trends in the Iranian cyber threat landscape will intensify as the country is forced into a defensive and economically straitened position in the wake of the U.S. exit from the Obama-era Iran nuclear accord this spring. With the US set to imminently to reimpose tough economic sanctions, Accenture has warned that the ransomware …

Consulting giant Accenture has plans to use blockchain to upgrade its logistics network, a patent application published July 26 reveals. According to the document published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the corporation wants to follow in the footsteps of various major players in leveraging blockchain to secure, speed up and increase the efficiency of logistics movements. “A device may receive an indication that a product has arrived at a destination. The product may have been shipped by an entity to the destination,” the patent’s abstract begins, elaborating: “The device may perform an analysis on the product to …

Boeing is partnering with an artificial intelligence (AI) company to develop pilotless vehicles and other products using blockchain, it announced in a press release July 17. Texas-based SparkCognition, a company which Boeing invested in in a $32 million funding round last month, will work with the aviation giant on a platform which will track unmanned air vehicles and allocate flight corridors. As a byproduct of this development, the partnership “will also provide a standardized programming interface to support package delivery, industrial inspection and other commercial applications,” the press release explains. A buoyant SparkCognition CEO Amir Husain said the aerospace industry …

Dublin-based major consultancy firm Accenture has partnered with French multinational aerospace firm Thales Group to update aircraft supply chains using blockchain, according to a press release July 16. Based on Hyperledger Fabric and set for its debut at the UK’s Farmborough Airshow July 21-22, the solution will use blockchain in tandem with Thales’ physically unclonable function (PUF) tool to “track, trace and authenticate aircraft parts and materials.” “The aerospace and defense industry has one of the world’s most vast and complex supply chains,” John Schmidt, global managing director for Accenture’s Aerospace and Defense practice said, continuing: “Blockchain technology offers a …