The importance of bitcoin and blockchain technology in FinTech sector is being reiterated by various reports over and over again. Recently, the Reserve Bank of India in its Financial Stability report mentioned the potential of blockchain technology to tackle frauds and counterfeiting of financial instruments and collaterals. Now Visa, the leading electronic payment solutions provider has published a blog post along similar lines.
The Visa blog post offers a brief overview of the payments industry in 2015. The blog reports a 9 percent increase in transaction volumes during this year.
The year 2015 has been witness to the emergence of a brand new platform called the blockchain. Blockchain is a distributed open ledger that records and offers confirmation to all transactions happening over the Bitcoin network. The same technology has now grown beyond bitcoin and is also being used for other purposes as well. In addition to the blockchain technology and bitcoin transactions, the contactless payments technology has also seen a decent adoption among the masses. Visa and its rival, MasterCard are in the forefront, providing contactless Point of Sale payment solutions to businesses and individuals alike. The new mVisa, which is mobile based transaction platform powered by Visa network also offers various services similar to that of bitcoin.
By mid-year, United Kingdom alone registered over 1 billion contactless transactions. In addition to contactless payment solutions provided by the card providers, Mobile phone companies like Samsung and Apple have also introduced contactless payment systems on their phones which can be interfaced with their bank account /credit/debit cards for making payments at compatible payment terminals.
The Visa blog post also mentions the transition of interest from bitcoin as a currency to blockchain as a financial technology. Blockchain’s potential is widely recognized now and it is no longer an option to ignore it. In addition, some of the implemented regulations this year has led to formalization of bitcoin as well.