These days it is impossible to read the financial press without often stumbling upon intriguing hints that something called “the blockchain” is going to disruptively revolutionize banking and financial services. So, in this first of a series of introductory articles, we try to explain clearly and simply what blockchain technology is, and why it is […]
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A report released by Long Finance has outlined the possible impact of blockchain technology on insurance. The report claims that blockchain technology applications, many of which are already in development, could have a major impact on identity, globalization, time, mutuality and other insurance industry transactions, by reducing the time and improving the security involved in […]
“Distributed ledgers, or blockchains, have the potential to dramatically reshape the capital markets industry, with significant impact on business models, reductions in risk and savings of cost and capital.” So reads Beyond the Hype: Blockchains in Capital Markets, a report just released by McKinsey & Company that focuses on ways the blockchain will contribute to […]
Identity is a universal problem inherent in all technology. Be it banking, healthcare, national security, online retailing or walking into a bar, identity authentication and authorization is a process intricately woven into commerce and culture worldwide. And it is often a very cumbersome, time-consuming and costly process. Blockchains change all that. Imagine having a level […]
The disruptive nature of blockchain technology is easy for people to conceptualize in the field of finance. T+3 interferes in traders being able to maximize earnings – payments shouldn’t take days to process while an email can be sent in seconds. As the first use case in many to come, finance is a perfect use […]
Throughout 2015, established financial institutions invested into the FinTech space and some of the world’s largest banks divulged they were studying the blockchain. Here are some of the headlines and highlights showing the blockchain’s emergence as one of the year’s most important trends. In March, Goldman Sachs published a report that included Bitcoin and the […]
While finance is one of the most talked about use cases for the blockchain, it is certainly not the only one. There are plenty of other industries that are ripe for disruption for this new technology, including identity. Matthew Roszak, Founding Partner of Tally Capital, said: “Think about the issues involved with signatures, voting registration, […]
In June Santander InnoVentures, the $100 million fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, Oliver Wyman and Anthemis Group, published a paper titled “The Fintech 2.0 Paper: rebooting financial services.” The paper, presented as “a call to action to banks, financial institutions and financial technology (fintech) businesses to work together to undertake a fundamental ‘reboot’ […]
Counterfeit and stolen goods are a significant problem of global commerce. According to the Economist, “estimates for the total value of fakes sold worldwide each year go as high as $1.8 trillion.” This results in tremendous losses to product owners without even taking into consideration the deceptive loss for consumers. Further, the resale of stolen […]
Needham & Company, an investment bank and asset management firm, has released an expansive document, The Blockchain Report: Welcome to the Internet of Value. The report explains what the blockchain is, how it can be implemented, applications and growth events, investment opportunities, and many of the top companies in the space. The fundamental point presented […]
These days it is impossible to read the financial press without often stumbling upon intriguing hints that something called “the blockchain” is going to disruptively revolutionize banking and financial services. So, in this first of a series of introductory articles, we try to explain clearly and simply what blockchain technology is, and why it is […]
A report released by Long Finance has outlined the possible impact of blockchain technology on insurance. The report claims that blockchain technology applications, many of which are already in development, could have a major impact on identity, globalization, time, mutuality and other insurance industry transactions, by reducing the time and improving the security involved in […]
“Distributed ledgers, or blockchains, have the potential to dramatically reshape the capital markets industry, with significant impact on business models, reductions in risk and savings of cost and capital.” So reads Beyond the Hype: Blockchains in Capital Markets, a report just released by McKinsey & Company that focuses on ways the blockchain will contribute to […]
Identity is a universal problem inherent in all technology. Be it banking, healthcare, national security, online retailing or walking into a bar, identity authentication and authorization is a process intricately woven into commerce and culture worldwide. And it is often a very cumbersome, time-consuming and costly process. Blockchains change all that. Imagine having a level […]
The disruptive nature of blockchain technology is easy for people to conceptualize in the field of finance. T+3 interferes in traders being able to maximize earnings – payments shouldn’t take days to process while an email can be sent in seconds. As the first use case in many to come, finance is a perfect use […]
Throughout 2015, established financial institutions invested into the FinTech space and some of the world’s largest banks divulged they were studying the blockchain. Here are some of the headlines and highlights showing the blockchain’s emergence as one of the year’s most important trends. In March, Goldman Sachs published a report that included Bitcoin and the […]
While finance is one of the most talked about use cases for the blockchain, it is certainly not the only one. There are plenty of other industries that are ripe for disruption for this new technology, including identity. Matthew Roszak, Founding Partner of Tally Capital, said: “Think about the issues involved with signatures, voting registration, […]
In June Santander InnoVentures, the $100 million fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, Oliver Wyman and Anthemis Group, published a paper titled “The Fintech 2.0 Paper: rebooting financial services.” The paper, presented as “a call to action to banks, financial institutions and financial technology (fintech) businesses to work together to undertake a fundamental ‘reboot’ […]
Counterfeit and stolen goods are a significant problem of global commerce. According to the Economist, “estimates for the total value of fakes sold worldwide each year go as high as $1.8 trillion.” This results in tremendous losses to product owners without even taking into consideration the deceptive loss for consumers. Further, the resale of stolen […]
Needham & Company, an investment bank and asset management firm, has released an expansive document, The Blockchain Report: Welcome to the Internet of Value. The report explains what the blockchain is, how it can be implemented, applications and growth events, investment opportunities, and many of the top companies in the space. The fundamental point presented […]
A report released by Long Finance has outlined the possible impact of blockchain technology on insurance. The report claims that blockchain technology applications, many of which are already in development, could have a major impact on identity, globalization, time, mutuality and other insurance industry transactions, by reducing the time and improving the security involved in […]
“Distributed ledgers, or blockchains, have the potential to dramatically reshape the capital markets industry, with significant impact on business models, reductions in risk and savings of cost and capital.” So reads Beyond the Hype: Blockchains in Capital Markets, a report just released by McKinsey & Company that focuses on ways the blockchain will contribute to […]
Identity is a universal problem inherent in all technology. Be it banking, healthcare, national security, online retailing or walking into a bar, identity authentication and authorization is a process intricately woven into commerce and culture worldwide. And it is often a very cumbersome, time-consuming and costly process. Blockchains change all that. Imagine having a level […]
The disruptive nature of blockchain technology is easy for people to conceptualize in the field of finance. T+3 interferes in traders being able to maximize earnings – payments shouldn’t take days to process while an email can be sent in seconds. As the first use case in many to come, finance is a perfect use […]
Throughout 2015, established financial institutions invested into the FinTech space and some of the world’s largest banks divulged they were studying the blockchain. Here are some of the headlines and highlights showing the blockchain’s emergence as one of the year’s most important trends. In March, Goldman Sachs published a report that included Bitcoin and the […]
While finance is one of the most talked about use cases for the blockchain, it is certainly not the only one. There are plenty of other industries that are ripe for disruption for this new technology, including identity. Matthew Roszak, Founding Partner of Tally Capital, said: “Think about the issues involved with signatures, voting registration, […]
In June Santander InnoVentures, the $100 million fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, Oliver Wyman and Anthemis Group, published a paper titled “The Fintech 2.0 Paper: rebooting financial services.” The paper, presented as “a call to action to banks, financial institutions and financial technology (fintech) businesses to work together to undertake a fundamental ‘reboot’ […]
Counterfeit and stolen goods are a significant problem of global commerce. According to the Economist, “estimates for the total value of fakes sold worldwide each year go as high as $1.8 trillion.” This results in tremendous losses to product owners without even taking into consideration the deceptive loss for consumers. Further, the resale of stolen […]
Needham & Company, an investment bank and asset management firm, has released an expansive document, The Blockchain Report: Welcome to the Internet of Value. The report explains what the blockchain is, how it can be implemented, applications and growth events, investment opportunities, and many of the top companies in the space. The fundamental point presented […]
A report released by Long Finance has outlined the possible impact of blockchain technology on insurance. The report claims that blockchain technology applications, many of which are already in development, could have a major impact on identity, globalization, time, mutuality and other insurance industry transactions, by reducing the time and improving the security involved in […]
“Distributed ledgers, or blockchains, have the potential to dramatically reshape the capital markets industry, with significant impact on business models, reductions in risk and savings of cost and capital.” So reads Beyond the Hype: Blockchains in Capital Markets, a report just released by McKinsey & Company that focuses on ways the blockchain will contribute to […]
Identity is a universal problem inherent in all technology. Be it banking, healthcare, national security, online retailing or walking into a bar, identity authentication and authorization is a process intricately woven into commerce and culture worldwide. And it is often a very cumbersome, time-consuming and costly process. Blockchains change all that. Imagine having a level […]
The disruptive nature of blockchain technology is easy for people to conceptualize in the field of finance. T+3 interferes in traders being able to maximize earnings – payments shouldn’t take days to process while an email can be sent in seconds. As the first use case in many to come, finance is a perfect use […]
Throughout 2015, established financial institutions invested into the FinTech space and some of the world’s largest banks divulged they were studying the blockchain. Here are some of the headlines and highlights showing the blockchain’s emergence as one of the year’s most important trends. In March, Goldman Sachs published a report that included Bitcoin and the […]
While finance is one of the most talked about use cases for the blockchain, it is certainly not the only one. There are plenty of other industries that are ripe for disruption for this new technology, including identity. Matthew Roszak, Founding Partner of Tally Capital, said: “Think about the issues involved with signatures, voting registration, […]
In June Santander InnoVentures, the $100 million fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, Oliver Wyman and Anthemis Group, published a paper titled “The Fintech 2.0 Paper: rebooting financial services.” The paper, presented as “a call to action to banks, financial institutions and financial technology (fintech) businesses to work together to undertake a fundamental ‘reboot’ […]
Counterfeit and stolen goods are a significant problem of global commerce. According to the Economist, “estimates for the total value of fakes sold worldwide each year go as high as $1.8 trillion.” This results in tremendous losses to product owners without even taking into consideration the deceptive loss for consumers. Further, the resale of stolen […]
Needham & Company, an investment bank and asset management firm, has released an expansive document, The Blockchain Report: Welcome to the Internet of Value. The report explains what the blockchain is, how it can be implemented, applications and growth events, investment opportunities, and many of the top companies in the space. The fundamental point presented […]
A report released by Long Finance has outlined the possible impact of blockchain technology on insurance. The report claims that blockchain technology applications, many of which are already in development, could have a major impact on identity, globalization, time, mutuality and other insurance industry transactions, by reducing the time and improving the security involved in […]
“Distributed ledgers, or blockchains, have the potential to dramatically reshape the capital markets industry, with significant impact on business models, reductions in risk and savings of cost and capital.” So reads Beyond the Hype: Blockchains in Capital Markets, a report just released by McKinsey & Company that focuses on ways the blockchain will contribute to […]
Identity is a universal problem inherent in all technology. Be it banking, healthcare, national security, online retailing or walking into a bar, identity authentication and authorization is a process intricately woven into commerce and culture worldwide. And it is often a very cumbersome, time-consuming and costly process. Blockchains change all that. Imagine having a level […]
The disruptive nature of blockchain technology is easy for people to conceptualize in the field of finance. T+3 interferes in traders being able to maximize earnings – payments shouldn’t take days to process while an email can be sent in seconds. As the first use case in many to come, finance is a perfect use […]
Throughout 2015, established financial institutions invested into the FinTech space and some of the world’s largest banks divulged they were studying the blockchain. Here are some of the headlines and highlights showing the blockchain’s emergence as one of the year’s most important trends. In March, Goldman Sachs published a report that included Bitcoin and the […]
While finance is one of the most talked about use cases for the blockchain, it is certainly not the only one. There are plenty of other industries that are ripe for disruption for this new technology, including identity. Matthew Roszak, Founding Partner of Tally Capital, said: “Think about the issues involved with signatures, voting registration, […]
In June Santander InnoVentures, the $100 million fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, Oliver Wyman and Anthemis Group, published a paper titled “The Fintech 2.0 Paper: rebooting financial services.” The paper, presented as “a call to action to banks, financial institutions and financial technology (fintech) businesses to work together to undertake a fundamental ‘reboot’ […]
Counterfeit and stolen goods are a significant problem of global commerce. According to the Economist, “estimates for the total value of fakes sold worldwide each year go as high as $1.8 trillion.” This results in tremendous losses to product owners without even taking into consideration the deceptive loss for consumers. Further, the resale of stolen […]
Needham & Company, an investment bank and asset management firm, has released an expansive document, The Blockchain Report: Welcome to the Internet of Value. The report explains what the blockchain is, how it can be implemented, applications and growth events, investment opportunities, and many of the top companies in the space. The fundamental point presented […]
On October 21, 2016, Visa announced a new partnership with blockchain enterprise company Chain that will develop “a simple, fast and secure way to process B2B payments globally.” Dubbed Visa B2B Connect, the system will offer participating pilot financial institutions a consistent process for managing settlement through Visa’s standard practices. “The time has never been better for the global […]
Symbiont announced the release of a software development kit for Assembly, the permissioned distributed ledger component of Symbiont’s Smart Securities Platform—a bespoke blockchain independent of Bitcoin and Ethereum. According to the company, Assembly is a distributed ledger designed for use in institutional finance. “It is a highly secure, high-performance, Byzantine fault-tolerant distributed ledger, able to […]
The Hyperledger Project, a collaborative cross-industry effort to advance blockchain technology led by The Linux Foundation, continues to announce new organizations joining the project to help create an open standard for distributed ledgers for a new generation of transactional applications. The project now has more than 85 members, which represents a growth of nearly 200 […]
Hashed Health, a new collaborative healthcare innovation company, has announced a major partnership with Martin Ventures, a global leader in healthcare and technology initiative investment. Its mission is to bring together leading healthcare enterprises in order to advance distributed ledger solutions that address the unique issues and regulatory regimes of the healthcare industry. In a […]
A new research white paper, How Blockchain Technology Can Enhance EHR Operability, jointly published by Ark Invest and Gem, makes a thoughtful case for the need to modernize the way electronic patient health records, called EHRs, are accessed and handled across the healthcare industry. According to the paper, a well-designed and implemented EHR infrastructure would […]
The transition from “talking” about blockchains to “walking” with them is increasingly cited as a required next step for 2017. To that end, financial services IT specialist Synechron has released a set of “accelerators” that will enable firms to deliver early blockchain-based apps faster, more affordably and with less risk. Synechron was founded in 2001 […]
Everyone is talking about the blockchain. There’s blockchain for health, blockchain for identity. Blockchain for records. Blockchain to copyright media. Yet the greatest benefit of the blockchain might be to increase financial transparency and access. What does that mean? Well, it means changing the way we think about some components of finance. It is due […]
R3 CEV, which is leading a financial services consortium investigating distributed ledger technology, has filed a patent for Corda, a shared ledger offering it developed. The company also announced Project Concord, a fully functioned platform that represents its “vision for the future of financial services,” of which Corda is a key component. Relatedly, R3 provided […]
Chosen from among more than 70 submissions, recently announced winners of the Blockchain Challenge in Health IT reflect critical developments in encryption, distributed ledger interoperability and smart-contracts claims processing, addressing issues that have long vexed the healthcare industry. A previous Distributed issue reported that the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) […]
The infrastructure that underpins the healthcare industry is increasingly cited as ripe for a redux based on blockchain technology – to improve efficiency and reduce costs, and provide better services to patients. But the devil is in the details, so Distributed asked David George, Chief Commercial Officer of Gem, for his thoughts on how blockchain […]
Gem, a provider of enterprise blockchain solutions, recently launched Gem Health, a network for developing applications and shared infrastructure for healthcare powered by the Ethereum blockchain and announced that Philips Blockchain Lab, a research and development center of healthcare giant Philips, was the first major healthcare operator to join the Gem Health network. “A lot […]
Although SETL, the London-based institutional payment and settlement startup, has launched a commercial blockchain platform named OpenCSD – for Central Securities Depository – the company maintains a major focus on payments between counterparties to a transaction. That’s because, as CEO Peter Randall puts it, payments bring “settlement finality.” By settlement, Randall is referring to the […]
Indian IT services and solutions provider Mphasis has launched a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for blockchain-based solutions at its Bangalore headquarters. The Mphasis CoE wants to help enterprises, initially in the mortgage, insurance and payment industries, to swiftly adopt and onboard blockchain-based solutions and services. In April, Hewlett Packard Enterprise agreed to sell its majority […]
The financial markets post-trade space is one application area that shows much promise for blockchain and distributed ledger technology, with several startups and internal bank projects focused on it. Clearable is one of those startups, with a particular focus on the global foreign exchange market, which is being impacted by increasing international regulation. Distributed spoke […]
A recently published Bank of England (BoE) working paper studies the macroeconomic consequences of issuing central bank digital currency (CBDC), a universally accessible and interest-bearing central bank liability, implemented via distributed ledgers, that competes with bank deposits as a medium of exchange. The paper, titled “The Macroeconomics of Central Bank Issued Digital Currencies,” is classified […]
R3 CEV, which leads a financial services-focused distributed ledger consortium, recently delved deeper into smart contract technology by hosting a Smart Contracts Template Summit bringing together groups in both London and New York City. As the summit’s name suggested, the overall goal was to explore developing “master templates for smart contracts” that could be tailored […]
IBM and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa Announce Identity Verification Project Built on Hyperledger Blockchain
Earlier this week, Bitcoin Magazine reported that IBM announced the opening of a new Bluemix Garage for cloud blockchain application development in New York. This included a new blockchain project for near-instantaneous payment settlements developed, in partnership, with the IBM Garage in Tokyo, by Mizuho Financial Group. Now IBM has unveiled another Bluemix project launched […]
“Within one value chain – the pharmaceutical supply chain for drug products – many use cases exist across the board where there’s an opportunity to leverage blockchain technology. Why? Because in this value chain there are many points where processes break down due to a lack of transparency and coordination,” noted Iliana Oris Valiente, cofounder […]
This is a guest post by Lamar Wilson, CEO of Fluent. Fluent, in concert with Thomson Reuters, SixThirty, and BTC Media recently hosted and sponsored Distributed: Trade, the first blockchain conference focused on optimizing trade & financial networks. Located at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, 38 speakers presented to over […]