Banks and financial firms worldwide are adopting blockchain technology "dramatically faster than initially expected," according to two IBM studies, which each polled 200 institutions.
Though 15% of global banks and 14% of financial-market institutions plan to implement full-scale, commercial blockchain solutions in 2017, "Mass adoption isn't that far behind, with roughly 65% of banks expecting to have blockchain solutions in production in the next three years," the company said in a statement Wednesday.
Furthermore, one of the IBM studies finds that large banks are "leading the charge" to embrace blockchain technology." In other words, early adopters are twice as likely to be large institutions with more than a 100,000 employees rather than small startups or fintech firms (blockchain is a database that serves as an automatic public ledger for transactions and is the basis of bitcoin).
Why are banks and financial firms rushing to embrace blockchain? Future profits.
According to the IBM Institute for Business Value, more than 70% of early adopters in banking want to break down barriers that inhibit both the creation of new business models and the expansion of businesses into new markets, while defending themselves against non-bank startups.
For financial markets institutions, 7 out of 10 trailblazers surveyed say they are focused on using blockchain in four main areas: clearing and settlement, wholesale payments, equity and debt issuance, and reference data.
