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In my final deep dive into blockchain use cases, I come to digital identity.  Now this is a thorny area for three reasons. First, we need to understand what we mean by identity before we can talk about how blockchains could help. Second, we need to understand the difference between blockchain and shared ledgers which,…

There are a number of base blockchain platforms that are important in the payments sphere, with the three leading players being Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple.  These are the base development platforms, rather than a payments service per se, and choosing which to use is intriguing as they all offer something different.  Bearing in mind that…

I’ve blogged for over a week about blockchain based developments in Clearing & Settlement and Trade Finance, and will continue for another week talking about the developments in Payments and Digital Identity.  However, at this point, I should clarify that I use the term blockchain as an overall term to describe what is happening.  I…

In Trade Finance there’s a lot of activity.  As mentioned yesterday, you have HSBC and Bank of America working with HyperLedger; R3 trialling with 15 banks based upon Corda; Ripple working with Standard Chartered and DBS; and JPMorgan have been developing a trade finance trial with Digital Asset. These are platofrms and industry developmetns, but…

After Clearing and Settlement as a blockchain use case, the next big area of interest is Trade Finance.  This is primarily because it’s an area full of inefficiencies and open to fraud.  Bills of Lading and Letters of Credit are old world methods of managing the shipping of goods and services, and the potential to…

After yesterday’s blog generally about blockchain use case implications in Clearing and Settlement markets, here are the six companies I see as being at the forefront of changing the game: Digital Asset, SETL, tO, Clearmatics, Symbiont and itBit. Digital Asset Digital Asset – also known as Digital Asset Holdings (DAH) – is the most notable…

I’ve talked a lot about blockchain, but not much lately about the use cases, of which four stand out in terms of real activity: Clearing and Settlement, Trade Finance, Payments and Digital Identity.  I thought I’d do a deeper dive into these during the quietness of August, starting with what’s happening in Clearing and Settlement. Today,…

Friend of the Financial Services Club and journalist with Financial News Anna Irrera has recently started producing a weekly roundup of FinTech news.  She’s kindly agreed to let me republish this summary here on The Finanser, so here goes: Lots of banks have been testing blockchain based applications for trade finance… 15 R3 Members Trial Distributed Ledger…

Here are our key posts for the past week … Renewing core systems is like renovating the subways Someone recently equated banks and their systems and structures, to the underground in London.  It’s a lot of pipes, wires, cables and tunnels that were built in the Victorian times and are still operating today.  You have…

Someone recently equated banks and their systems and structures, to the underground in London.  It’s a lot of pipes, wires, cables and tunnels that were built in the Victorian times and are still operating today.  You have engineers on the tracks every night and day, trying to keep the systems running, whilst also trying to…