Israel Securities Authority’s ‘Yael’ messenger now on blockchain

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As part of its effort to improve security, the Israel Securities Authority has embedded blockchain technology in its messaging system, called Yael, The Times of Israel reported.

Taldor, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, developed the blockchain integration about three months ago. The ISA will now be able to prevent fraud and insiders trading and verify the authenticity and provenance of messages through the immutable blockchain.

By integrating the government messaging system with the blockchain tech, according to the ISA, ensures “the credibility of the information relayed to supervised bodies.” With blockchain, the messages’ authenticity are verified, thus preventing fraud and even from being edited or deleted.

The regulatory body also has plans to integrate blockchain to two other systems: Magna, an archive of reports of organisations supervised by ISA, and an online shareholder voting platform developed by the ISA that allows investors to participate in meetings wherever they are.

Natan Hershkovitz, director of the agency’s Information Systems Department explained, “Implementing blockchain technology in the ISA’s information systems makes it one of the global leading authorities in securing the information provided to the public.”

Israel’s interest in the blockchain technology is not new; the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Israel have been working together on a state-sponsored cryptocurrency as far back as February. In March, however, the ISA banned companies that primarily invested or mine cryptos from listing on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. This was done in a bid to protect investors, with the ISA promising that it would evaluate new tokens on use case basis.

According to Hershkovitz, “We are seeing a growing trend in the world in general and in the financial sector in particular of implementing innovative and groundbreaking technology.” He also explained that integrating the blockchain technology into the information systems of the ISA places it as “one of the world’s leading authorities in terms of the security and reliability of information that it passes to the public.”