Is Blockchain-powered FinTech the future of finance?

Imagine yourself as a bank executive, competing against a global, multi-service, low-cost, digital bank; customers checking their accounts via smartphones, paying bills or transferring money with a swipe of finger.

An AI-powered engine allows them to play around with their ETF portfolios with absolutely no fees, or cross-border payments.

Take a moment to consider facing a competitor with a nimble footprint, prototyping new services quickly, managing regulatory compliance transparently, using an AI system to limit fraud losses, and hedging currency risk using cryptocurrencies.

While this competitor does not actually exist today, the financial services industry is well on its way to transforming this not-so distant dream into reality, due to the disruptive technologies that have changed the playing field.

While many banks lean on their IT departments to spearhead efforts of innovation, and support legacy systems in parallel, the FinTech sector are leading the innovative line with user-friendly solutions developed from the ground up.

The pace of change shows no signs of slowing down; and the main driving force of this hike is blockchain.

According to a report by Market Data Forecast, the global FinTech market is foreseen to expand from $1.23 billion in 2020 to $9.2 billion in 2025, with a stunning growth rate (CAGR) of 75.9 percent.

“The recent Covid-19 outbreak has highlighted the demand for digital transformation in the banking sector as people are forced to use online services and limit their visits to the bank,” the report said, adding that “for this reason, most of the banking companies are collaborating with financial tech providers to offer differentiated and competitive services, since the digital customer experience will be the main competitive advantage and is expected to drive the market.”

But before we delve deeper into the effects of blockchain on FinTech, we must first define the technology itself.

What is blockchain?

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that allows information to be stored globally on thousands of servers. When two companies are in business together and use cryptocurrency as payment, the agreement forms the “block” in the chain.

Blockchain links and secures these blocks using cryptography.

The most vital features of the technologies are three-fold:

• Decentralized – a blockchain-powered network excludes the risks of data being kept centrally by storing it across the network.
• Distributed ledger is a synchronized database and accessible across various locations and geographies by multiple participants. Each of the computers in the distributed network holds a copy of the ledger to guarantee transparency and prevent a single point of failure (SPOF).
• Immutable record – all blockchain networks follow a particular protocol for validating new blocks. Once registered, the data in any block can’t be changed without altering all the following blocks, which requires the network’s consent.

These attributes extend far beyond economics but are ideal for what FinTech hopes to achieve and accomplish within the financial services industry. In parallel to that, blockchain-powered FinTech applications can resolve the issue of trust between two transacting parties operating on equal term.

Between bulletproof identity authentication protocols and smart contracts, blockchain is considered one of the most secure environments on the market.

Blockchain in the FinTech landscape

Blockchain offers a more seamless, effective, and transparent alternative to the legacy systems currently in place, mainly catered around the concept of fairness and decentralization, which likely creates the perfect financial storm to revamp the financial industry as a whole.

• Eliminating the middleman

 What usually takes regular banks three to five business days to process fund transfers due to all the necessary hoops and protocols needed, would take blockchain-powered FinTech apps minutes to complete.

Not only that, but these applications can grant users real-time data updating features that paints a clear and error-free picture of the transactions being made.

• Smart contracts

According to StartUs Insights, Smart contracts that are embedded into a blockchain does not rely on a centralized stakeholder for hosting and controlling, which eliminates chances of data manipulation and/or conflicts of interests.

“Any attempts to modify the contract or its contacts will be automatically corrected by other blockchain nodes, making it too expensive and nearly impossible to tamper with the agreement,” the report by StartUs Insights highlighted.

An example of this can be seen through a collaboration between Credit Suisse and a startup called Synaps a joint initiative by Symbiont and Ipreo, which focuses on automating and improving the global loan syndicate market using blockchain-based smart contracts.

The collaboration is developing a solution for easing the process of arranging, signing, and executing syndicated loan agreements.

• Lowering transaction costs

It comes as no surprise that banks are making fortunes through transactional fees, as financial regulators are still cashing in by essentially permitting customers to use their own money.

When blockchain firmly steps into the mix, this cost will drastically plummet, due to their ability to grant users direct, peer-to-peer transactions, unshackling customers from all intermediaries.

An example of this can be seen through a startup called Request Network, which has developed a solution for not only directly sending and receiving money but also for paying and issuing invoices, for businesses to accept money for online payments, as well as for cities and governments to be more transparent and allowing citizens to monitor their transactions.

• Finance beyond borders

The beauty of blockchain is that it’s entirely based on the Internet; shedding away the need for any operational setup and the need to tie into any local regulation or entity. One only needs a private account to begin using it.

This frees customers from the parameters set forth by banks to make transactions, paving the way for more decentralized systems that would allow global transactions to happen while only needing Internet access.

• Fair and transparent regulations & auditing

The mainstream use of blockchain within the FinTech sector would enable developers to create the most concise auditing protocols.

According to U.S.-based software company TheBlockBox, a blockchain functions as a storage of linear blocks that adds a new entry for every new action, but it never tampers with old blocks no matter how big the system gets.

“This can provide all the data needed to conduct a quick and secure audit of transactions, which is precisely why transparency is something experts hail as the main upside of blockchain networks,” the TheBlockBox report explained.

While the hype behind blockchain-powered FinTech is alive and well, the industry is still relatively nascent especially for decentralized networks to become a mainstream financial model.

The model goes completely against the tide of the financial industry today, thus making it a more radical approach to an already hyper competitive industry.

However, with the current technological advancements making strides every day, we should see the technology starting to attract the ears and eyes of the many in no time.