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TECHNOLOGY
Chain reaction The potential for blockchain technologies to disrupt the financial services industry is growing, but businesses should not rush in blindly BY SEBASTIAN RATH
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he digitally-connected consumer age for financial services is here and accelerating fast. Global consumption is increasingly digitally empowered. This trend determines which financial services succeed and grow, which ones specialise, and which ones might not connect with future customers. Digital ecosystems are success factors enabling financial services firms to thrive, to deliver superior customer-centric experiences, and to respond to increasing demand for instant analytical information. Globally, this is evident in trends for deeper business intelligence, the use of data mining, big data, and data analytics. These developments are not entirely new, but emphasis on data infrastructures has gained significant momentum with blockchain technologies entering the mainstream. In summer 2016, the World Economic Forum said that blockchain would “become the beating heart of the global financial system.” The technology promises to create an ecosystem of banks, insurers, capital market makers, brokers, governments, asset managers and pension providers that can deliver seamless customer service. But what is blockchain and why does it matter?
Risk managers have a critical role to play in assessing both the internal and external risk factors that blockchain creates
Unique characteristics The origins of blockchain arose with Bitcoin, which was a response by cryptographers to systemic trust-issues
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Enterprise Risk
