Bitcoin in Numbers: The Year of Blockchains for Banks

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Barclays – the first major bank to accept Bitcoin:

News is circulating around that the banking giant is to "Accept Bitcoin". They are exploring the use of bitcoin specifically for charities. Barclays will not be handling the bitcoins themselves for the time being, having stated it will be done in association with an unnamed 3rd party.

Many banking giants are turning 2015 into ‘The year the Banks discovered the Blockchain’. 
Countless other major institutions are dedicating resources to exploring the ledger technology. Barclays has gone as far as making an investment earlier this year into Safello: a Stockholm based Bitcoin Exchange & reportedly dedicating up to 75 staff across two of it research labs, to work on Blockchain technology. We can assume but not confirm that Safello is the on/off-ramp partner for Barclay’s bitcoin for charities program.

Blockchains for Banks?:

According to a report from Goldman Sachs earlier this year titled: All About Bitcoin, legacy payment systems are costing banks over 550bn per year. 

For banks, the idea of processing their own clearing & settlements is a good enough incentive to explore Blockchain technology. It represents efficiency gains in their own inter-branch operations, as well as faster processing times for their customers. Here’s the basic example visualized: 

Blockchains for Banks – Breaking it down:

Distributed Ledger Technology (aka Blockchains) are now over 6 years old and we are seeing a maturing of the technology into key categories. 

Below is a neat little graph from the recent European Banking Association (EBA) report titled: Cryptotechnologies, a major IT innovation and catalyst for change.

Overtime, Distributed Ledger Technology (Blockchains), have expanded beyond simple currencies and can be broken into: Currencies, Asset-Registry, Application Stacks & Asset Centric Ledgers.

The use cases for banking providers can be summarized as:

1. Foreign Exchange & Remittance
2. Real-Time Payments
3. Documentary Trade
4. Asset Servicing

2015 – Banks & Blockchains timeline:

Source: LetsTalkPayments

2015 is shaping up to be the year of ‘Blockchains for Banks’ and September is gearing up to be huge with several massive projects rumored to be announced at key events.
Meanwhile via Bloomberg – Blythe Masters tells Banks the Blockchain changes everything is a great insight into what’s going on over in NYC.

How will this institutional interest effect bitcoin the currency? Read our weekly Bitcoin Markets Reports to stay informed.