Bitcoin and the technology powering it, both seem to have attained a celebrity status making them hard to ignore. Even Capgemini, the technology consulting firm agrees on it. The company, in its recent report has mentioned that the blockchain technology has left a huge mark which can no longer be ignored by the banking and financial services sector.
The report goes on to reiterate the various advantages of blockchain technology along with a brief overview of how it works etc. Capgemini makes it clear in the report that the blockchain technology, with its distributed ledgers can significantly bring down the costs as well as increase the security in the sector. Few banks and companies have already realized this and they are racing towards creating blockchain based solutions which can be included in their operations. A consortium of international banks have come together and working on creating an inter-bank network for fund transfers without having the central bank’s and international banking network’s involvement.
By avoiding central bank and SWIFT network, banks can save a considerable sum of money which otherwise would be spent on transaction fees. Banks will be able to pass on the benefits to its customers by reducing the charges imposed on them for fund transfer and other operations. Also, banks feel threatened by the growing importance of bitcoin and blockchain technology. Few executives have already voiced their concerns about bitcoin and its technology rendering the banks obsolete.
It seems like there is enough consensus to prove that bitcoin technology is the future of banking and fintech. Even banks agree to that and they have begun to embrace it instead of resisting the change. In few cases, banks have tried fighting the emergence of bitcoin on their turf (Australia for example) and we are yet to see how it is going to end.