GM Financial, the arm of General Motors that offers leasing, financing, and lending products to GM customers and dealerships, has announced a partnership with blockchain startup Spring Labs, which raised $15 million in a seed round last spring. The auto lender will join the Spring Founding Industry Partners Program to work with Spring Labs as it develops its blockchain products, the first of which are expected to launch in the first half of 2019. For GM Financial Chief Strategy Officer Mike Kanarios, the partnership with Spring Labs was a natural fit as GM continues to dip its toes into blockchain. Kanarios thinks that Spring Labs’ protocol could help GM Financial combat synthetic identity fraud, which occurs when a fraudster uses both real and fake identification information to create a new identity and make purchases. Like Accenture, GM is a member of the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI), a group dedicated to exploring applications of blockchain like these.

Source: Forbes February 11, 2019 12:00 UTC