Ex-Google Engineer Launches Blockchain-based System for Banks

Paul Taylor, former head of the text-to-speech group at Google and a serial entrepreneur specialising in speech, language and artificial intelligence has announced the launch of a startup which builds blockchain-based operating systems for banks and financial institutions.

The startup, called ThooughtMachine led by CEO Paul Taylor, is launching its first blockchain-based operating system called Vault OS, which allows banks to run their core functions in the cloud.

The core concept of Vault OS is to utilize smart contracts on a centralized and permissioned cryptographic ledger to settle all bank transactions, products, and settlements including payments, deposit accounts, savings, mortgages, loans, and credit card accounts.

By relying on a scalable cloud platform, financial institutions will be able to rely on faster and more secure end to end banking systems to manage most of their operations online.

Taylor believes that the Vault OS will replace outdated financial and banking systems that are still in use by the world’s major banking groups.

“Most of the banks are using systems that were written in the 80s and 90s, and they just are not ready for the security-conscious internet app age at all,” Taylor told Reuters in an interview. “What the blockchain does is provide a very secure way of storing transactions.”

The smart contract-based Vault OS network is already being utilized by various developers and financial institutions, with over 17,419 Vault OS builds and 119.8 daily VAULT OS code commits recorded to date.

With 41 employees and a fully stacked technology, research, and development team, ThoughtMachine plans to collaborate with leading financial establishments to run their permissioned blockchain-based systems.

“Thought Machine is changing all this. With a world class team expert in cloud computing, machine learning, finance, design and app building, we are creating the banks of the future,” explains the ThoughtMachine team.

One key limitation of the Vault OS platform however, is that the entire cloud system is based on a permissioned blockchain or ledger, which are far less secure and more vulnerable compared to decentralized blockchains like the Bitcoin blockchain.