Blockchain for banks – pilot time
Distributed ledger technologies will help banks to conduct transactions that require trust.
Let me give you a case from my own practice. A woman entrepreneur approached the bank with an offer of a very lucrative deal guaranteed by a large British bank. The model-looking staff accompanying the entrepreneur looked like Oxford graduates stepped off the cover of a glossy business magazine. The businesswoman is also dressed stylishly, but here’s a face … I wouldn’t give such a guarantee even for a hundred rubles, but here is a huge amount in British pounds. My field of activity included information security, so I was not surprised when the chairman of the bank’s board asked me to check the submitted paper.
The guarantee is printed on an English bank’s letterhead, produced by typography. I dial the phone number on the paper in London. The person who introduces himself as a bank manager confirms the authenticity of the document in excellent English.
I can’t calm down, I find the bank’s website on the Internet and send a request to the security service. The next day, the answer comes: the bank has already encountered such a fraudulent scheme and did not give any guarantees to this woman.
Blockchain is often called the “killer of banks” – in the new cryptocurrency world, built on distributed ledger technologies, according to its most radical adherents, it will be possible to completely get rid of intermediaries. But in practice, everything is not so simple. Banks themselves also need the trust that distributed ledger technologies provide.
The main directions of development of financial technologies.
The first project is accounting for electronic mortgage bonds. Its goal is to reduce the costs of depositories for storing paper mortgages and accelerate the interaction of the bank, Rosreestr and depositories. Within the framework of the project, the first real transactions were carried out, and now the system is being prepared for commercial operation.
The other two projects are digital bank guarantees and digital letters of credit. In a pilot mode, transactions were made between banks to issue electronic bank guarantees. The beneficiary gets access to the guarantee in his favor almost instantly, immediately after its issue. At all stages, documents are signed with an enhanced qualified signature.
Find a place in a new world
The future of cryptocurrencies in Russia is still vague, the adoption of a package of laws on cryptocurrencies is periodically postponed, and it is unclear which edition will eventually be legalized. But optimists believe that the new crypto-economy will still not be stopped, and suggest that banks look for their place in the new world.
The situation is similar with legal entities. No need to wait for the evening balance sheet, tokens are credited instantly. You do not need to confirm the payment order with the “Done” mark – you can ship the product immediately, and use rubles only for settlements with external counterparties – the bank works as a gateway for withdrawing to fiat. If the Bank of Russia supports this approach, then all banks will be able to interact according to the above scheme through the blockchain.
It’s too early to talk about the real use of blockchain technologies in banks. There are pilot projects, they look promising, but they have not yet reached the stage of industrial implementations. The excitement around the technology subsided along with the fall in cryptocurrency rates. This is usually the case: all new technologies go through a phase of inflated expectations, after which, according to the terminology of the Gartner Hype cycle, they fall into the “zone of disappointment.” But not everyone then reaches the “productivity plateau”.
Blockchain in the “frustration zone”
However, global analytical agencies are optimistic about the future of distributed ledger technologies, so we can expect that they will soon become a part of our everyday life.
