Credit Suisse has produced a report titled ‘Shared ledger technology and the impact on stocks’ based on its findings on blockchain technology, with the conclusion that it will significantly alter all areas of finance and banking in the next decade. The pioneering area, according to both Credit Suisse and Ripple, will be cross-border payments.
In this report, Credit Suisse has reviewed its opinions on potential of bitcoin and blockchain have to disrupt global incumbents operating in the payments, capital markets, financial services and media ecosystems.
The report found there are 13 barriers to mainstream bitcoin adoption and concluded it will remain a niche payment network; however, the underlying blockchain technology was considered vital, with the potential to disrupt. This opinion was backed up by a study by McKinsey-SIFMA which stated that ‘using blockchain for cross-border B2B (business-to-business) payments could generate $50-60bn of ‘value’ resulting from lower costs/fees and better security and speed.’
Whilst widespread adoption might take a decade, it was noted that some banks are already implementing the technology, with the example of Santander in the UK using Ripple to make international payments. Additionally, Ripple was mentioned for being used in trade finance with both the Development Bank of Singapore and Standard Chartered having experimented with Ripple to benefit from the immutability and security of the network.
