How Will Banks React to the Blockchain?
The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, And Application Of The Next Internet Technology. By William Mougayar. Wiley. 180 pp.
If you’re not altogether comfortable with your grasp of what is being called the blockchain, you are not alone. Fortunately, a new book by William Mougayar called The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, And Application Of The Next Internet Technology comes to the rescue.
As Banking Exchange’s Steve Cocheo points out in his article about the book, you’ll have to read it carefully. Blockchain is, to say the least, a complicated, multi-layered business concept.
As Mougayar states in his book:
“If there is one main point that I will keep drilling upon, it is to emphasize that the blockchain is not one item, thing, trend, or feature. It is many pieces all at once, some of them working together, and others independently.”
Just to give you an idea of the level of detail available in The Business Blockchain, Mougayar offers a ten-point list of blockchain’s properties:
- cryptocurrency
- computing infrastructure
- transaction platform
- decentralized database
- distributed accounting ledger
- development platform
- open source software
- financial services marketplace
- peer-to-peer network
- trust services layer
On the whole, Mougayar regards the banking business as slightly behind the times, but does not count them out as significant players in blockchain (as opposed to mere gatekeepers).
“Financial services institutions will be challenged by how much they are willing to bend their business models to accommodate the weight of the blockchain. Their default position will be to only slightly open the door, expecting to let as many benefits seep in, with the least amount of opening. The challengers (mostly startups) will try to kick that door open as much as possible, expecting to throw the incumbents off balance.”
As a solution provider, we wonder if this is an opportunity to add value to existing workflows in some regard. That’s our goal with real-time image validation for payment negotiability.
But, you didn’t think homework ended when you finished college, did you? Time to get the yellow hi-lighter and spend a few nights with The Business Blockchain!