VAKT

VAKT is a new organization, funded by nine leading energy companies and banks, with the aim of transforming the global commodities trading industry. Traditionally, the post-trade process would involve both parties checking paperwork and changing records on separate, manual systems, which is time-consuming and error-prone. ThoughtWorks leveraged blockchain technology to build a digital platform, allowing all parties to manage that process in the same place for the very first time. The nine organizations are:

1. BP
2. Equinor
3. Shell
4. Gunvor
5. Koch
6. Mercuria
7. ABN Amro
8. ING
9. Société Générale

VAKT held an open development competition between a shortlist of 10 providers bidding to partner with VAKT on its innovative mission. ThoughtWorks demonstrated its collaborative ways of working and technical excellence and was subsequently selected.

The scale at which VAKT wanted to implement blockchain technology was ground-breaking, so before starting work, the ThoughtWorks team carried out a thorough five-week discovery process including contextual interviews and agile techniques. The ThoughtWorks team was split across the UK and India, with the UK members based in the VAKT office, working as one with the VAKT team, with total transparency. As the project ramped up rapidly, so did the ThoughtWorks team, growing from 15 to 70 members in only six weeks.

This was an unprecedented and highly ambitious project led by a group of nine companies, each with their own business logic and API to factor into the platform. ThoughtWorks helped VAKT to design the infrastructure to support the new processes they would need to follow once the platform was live. The team also carried out user research to inform the look and feel of the innovative platform.

The team employed parallel working to carry out multiple tests and iterations at the same time, employing agile methodology and working in unison to solve challenges rapidly and ultimately meet VAKT’s requirements and deadline.

In November, the platform was launched in the North Sea crude oil market, providing traders with a secure, single source of truth that will revolutionize the way they do business. VAKT plans to make its platform available in more markets throughout 2019 and beyond.