IBM: Banks appear to want to adopt blockchain faster than expected

IBM research among 200 banks and as many financial institutions shows that they want to use blockchain technology much faster than expected: 15 percent of the banks and 14 percent of the institutions expect to deploy the technology on a large scale in 2017.

In total, about 65 percent of banks want to adopt certain blockchain-related technology in the next three years. More than fifty percent think they will have truly commercial blockchain-based products on the market by 2020. IBM bases this on two studies it conducted at banks and financial institutions.

The research also shows that large banks, completely against the expectations of Big Blue, seem to be the trailblazers for embracing blockchain technology. Small fintech organizations and start-ups seem to invest a lot less time in research into blockchain technology. The pioneers at the major banks see practical applications mainly in retail payments, lending and reference data.

However, it is not all hosanna and banks still see many obstacles in the way of adopting blockchain, such as the fact that it concerns young technology. In addition, there is still a lack of clarity about the return on investment and about restrictions due to regulations.

At the moment, many large banks and IT companies are working on the technology resulting from Bitcoin. For example, Microsoft started Project Bletchley and IBM is in the Hyperledger project with the Linux Foundation, among others. The R3 project also completed its blockchain technology research early this year, testing various blockchains.