Partnership

BLOOCK's Partnership: OKTICS (OKO) by CIMNE

February 12, 2023

We are excited to announce our new partnership with OKTICS (OKO), a CIMNE spin-off focused on the digital transformation of its clients, designs, develops, and markets solutions for the intelligent management of content, services, and IoT devices. OKTICS offers NFC devices that, once scanned, automatically direct to a landing page with personalized content. Thanks to our integration, the landing page and the information it contains can be certified on the blockchain.NFC, or Near Field Communication, is a communication protocol for electronic devices. It is mostly used to support mobile payment systems like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. It is also used to share media between nearby devices, create access tokens and key cards, and bootstrap wireless connections.

What NFC do?

NFC makes it easy for users to make instant payments with their smartphones or tablet. You can use a mobile wallet, like those offered by Google or Apple, to process a transaction with just a few taps—no need to even open your wallet.It is also a highly versatile platform; in that, it covers a range of services and industries. As a payment platform, NFC can be used for mobile banking, restaurant reservations, booking train or movie tickets, delivering real-time updates on expenditure and rewards points, redeeming rewards and coupons, and more.This system is beneficial for enterprises as well, as it presents a dynamic and forward-thinking mindset. Customers are better served through convenient, hassle-free technologies, which in turn improves brand reputation and increases productivity.NFC's advanced encryption allows institutions to use it to screen or admit student or employee IDs. In some cases, the IDs can also be used to interact with objects in an office environment, sharing real-time information with other users or devices.Using mobile wallets is, to an extent, safer than using physical credit cards. In the unfortunate event of theft of the mobile device, the user’s credit card information is password- and PIN-protected. This adds an additional layer of safety. NFC-enabled payment cards are built to be more secure than the magnetic strip of a regular credit card. While using this system, retailers would have no physical access to customers’ credit card information.

How is blockchain technology integrated with NFC technology?

BLOOCK and OKO partnershipTo make the most of the integration between their platforms, the BLOOCK and OKO teams have identified 3 application cases that could be of great interest to customers of both companies:

  • Machinery maintenance:

Proper management of inspections and maintenance records, as well as demonstrating compliance with regulations, has become a crucial topic today. Non-compliance can lead to penalties of more than €600,000. The proposed solution consists of installing an NFC device in the machinery that allows access to the entire maintenance history of the machinery, using an integrated solution that allows both the certification of the reports by the maintenance operators and the subsequent validation of the same, speeding up the process, reducing costs and minimizing risks.

  • Retail:

Avoid the product counterfeit. The explosion of online commerce during COVID has increased the production and sale of counterfeit goods, which the OECD estimates to be worth $3 trillion by 2022, a crucial problem that many organizations often ignore. By installing an NFC device on the product packaging, which is linked to the product's unique ID, the customer can verify that the product offered is genuine, eliminating counterfeits from the market and protecting the credibility of the company using this solution.

  • Local councils:

Certification of cleaning tasks for greater transparency. Currently, we find that citizens are not aware of the repair, maintenance, and cleaning work carried out in the public space by municipal services. The use case consists of making public, thanks to the scanning of OKO devices and the digital certification of images by BLOOCK, the work carried out by the different municipal services of the city council, offering greater transparency about the actions carried out by the city council and putting technology at the service of citizens.

According to OKO, "The collaboration with BLOOCK allows us to open ourselves to a new business model and the possibility of carrying out decentralized and collaborative projects in a secure and transparent way. By establishing this relationship, we improve efficiency, safety, and innovation in different areas and projects."As for BLOOCK, “this partnership is especially important due to the entrants to new markets aside from blockchain alone we display our ability to diversify our product through this amazing collaboration with OKTICS in order to pursue further growth.” BLOOCK is excited to OKO as our new partner.

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