On November 11, 2019, Brazil had its first civil partnership notarized using blockchain technology, ZDNet reported. Local startup Growth Tech used its Notary Ledger platform. The digital certificate was also accompanied by a physical certificate which was produced 20 mins after the digital process completed.
After showing the viability of the process, Hugo Pierre, Growth Tech’s founder said: “We urgently need to join efforts for this modus operandi to be adopted throughout Brazil.”
Growth Tech started as a property tech, providing a blockchain platform for the more efficient sale and purchase of real estate. The company collaborated with property companies including MRV, the largest real-estate developer in Brazil and reduced the typically 4-month long process of property registration to just four days. However, this is just the pilot stage and “Technically, the whole process can be done the same day by blockchain,” according to the Rio de Janeiro real estate development director Henrique Queiroz.
Meanwhile, with another property client, the real-estate company Cyrela, the registration was done in 20 minutes.
However, Growth tech has ventured beyond property tech with its Notary Ledger, which allows citizens to request and track notary services online. Using the platform, the company successfully registered a birth certificate in Brazil in June 2019, in its pilot project. Notary Ledger uses the Hyperledger Fabric enterprise blockchain and is hosted by IBM Blockchain.
While blockchain is a great way to record the existence of facts and timestamps, to date, there are few examples of legal blockchain notaries. However, several countries are exploring blockchain for land registration, including the UK, UAE, St. Kitts and Nevis, Mexico, and several other South American countries.
