Aston University leads €3.65m European project to protect privacy in digital finance

Aston University is leading a €3.65 million European research project to develop technology that lets people prove they have passed financial checks without handing over all of their personal information.

The three-year project, called PETs4DeFi, brings together 17 organisations from 11 countries and is funded by the European Union through its Horizon Europe programme. Its partners held their first meeting at Aston Business School in Birmingham last month.

Privacy and rules, together

The project focuses on decentralised finance, known as DeFi, which lets people lend, borrow and trade digital assets without using a traditional bank. Transactions recorded on public blockchains can reveal information about the people and businesses involved. But systems designed to hide transactions can also make it harder to check that rules against money laundering and other financial crime are being followed.

The aim is to show that both are possible. For example, a user could prove they have passed identity checks without revealing the personal details used to verify them.

Dr Bogdan Adamyk of Aston Business School, the project's Principal Investigator, said: "People should not have to choose between their privacy and the rules that protect everyone in finance. PETs4DeFi will show that both are possible."

"Our consortium brings together cryptographers, lawyers, economists, engineers and security practitioners, and that mix is what makes this work possible."

Tested in the real world

The partners will test the technology in areas including lending, digital asset exchanges, NFT platforms and digital identity wallets. They will also develop security methods designed to withstand future attacks from quantum computers.

The project aims to produce open-source software, tools for developers and guidance for regulators, so that other organisations can explore how privacy-preserving financial services could work in practice.

Birmingham at the centre

Aston University is coordinating the whole project, leading its management, ethics and risk work, and its researchers will help define the project's requirements and how it is governed and evaluated. The work is part of the Aston Centre for Cyber Security Innovation and is supported by the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre.

Professor Colin Grant, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of Aston University, said: "Coordinating a project of this scale, with partners from 11 countries, reflects the strength of our research and our place in European collaboration."

"Our University Strategy places a strong emphasis on applied research with real-world impact. This project will help citizens, companies and regulators to trust digital finance and to use it safely."

The project began at the start of October 2026 and runs for three years. It is another sign of Birmingham's growing role in cyber security research, alongside the city's expanding fintech sector.