Is there any “talk” of the blockchain technology in your forex world?
The bank I work for certainly is, and we're looking at it for Integrated G/L capabilities with other banks. There is a consortium of banks looking at building this capability into Blockchain, I work for one of those banks. (No, I won't say which one.)
Proponents suggest in the third world this technology could make a huge difference to emerging markets who do not have access to banks.
It's certainly one of the possibilities. It's being viewed in the Banking Industry as a way to lower the cost of transactions by integrating Bank G/L's together and allowing transactions to happen in near real-time.
That's certainly going to have an impact on the every day banking customer (we call them retail customers) and some of the transactions they're used to. For example: "floating a check" will disappear. The ability to put a check in the mail to pay a bill for which the money is not in the account at the time the check was written will become a thing of the past. It won't matter if the money is there when the check arrives at the Payee. Traditional checks will become a thing of the past.
That's just ONE example.
Proponents of Banks integrating their G/L's using Blockchain technology tout Blockchain's security while ignoring recent successful cyber-attacks against blockchain security.
If you want to know which banks are using blockchain and how they're using blockchain, click that link. Most of the articles are easy to read and understand.
I worked at one of the larger New England based banks several years ago. I worked on the retail side, but not in a branch. So, I understand the who transaction pricing thing.
One of my jobs was working on the contracts for those ATMs that you see in the grocery store. You know the little one armed bandits that charge you horrible fees. I told my boss that I was surprised that the mafia wasn’t involved in that business...
The general public has no idea of their debit card works. They don’t realize that many of those transactions are not real time—but rather batched up and transmitted to a central clearinghouse. And, of course, everyone gets to dip their beak in the proceeds at every stop.
I knew some of the big guys were looking at it for their own transactions (international and what not.) I did not realize they were looking to make a consortium.
Thanks for your comment. That is very interesting.