Survey Reveals that 90% of Finance Professional Think Blockchain will Yield Major Benefits
A TD Bank Survey revealed that a majority of professionals from the treasury and finance industry believe that the blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) will benefit the payment industry in a significant way. Ninety percent of the respondents admitted that despite uncertainties among the authorities regarding the blockchain, the technology would have an overall positive effect on the industry.
The survey was conducted by TD Bank, which claims to be America’s Most Convenient Bank, is one of the ten largest banks in the U.S. The poll was done at the 2018 AFP Conference held on Nov. 5-6, 2018, in Chicago, Illinois. A total of 406 industry professionals were surveyed, including business end-users and financial and technology services organizations.
Twenty-nine percent of the respondents believe that the significant benefit of blockchain/distributed ledger technology is its ability to create better audit trails. Twenty-two percent state that technology will help speed up the payments process. Twenty-one percent maintains that technology will Improve efficiency of cross-border payments and 18 percent supports blockchain for it can reduce payment frauds.
“Blockchain technology has broad implications for the commercial payments space, from speeding up settlements to securing cross-border transactions. Even though much of the industry has a baseline understanding that blockchain can evolve and improve payments, the varied responses indicate that the technology’s specific capabilities and implications are still a great unknown for many finance professionals,” said Rick Burke, Head of Corporate Products and Services at TD Bank.
Blockchain remains one of the most important innovations of our times, and many hold the view that it could change society as the Internet did. Professionals believe that Blockchain will usher a lot of positive changes and considering that many companies are investing in training strategies for several facets of treasury operations. However, the survey revealed that only 14 percent of the respondents acknowledged that their organization has training strategies specifically for blockchain compared to Artificial Intelligence (26%) and Data and Analytics (45%).
The Poll majorly identified the risk of payments fraud/cybersecurity as number one concern for the industry professionals, with 44 percent admitting it as their top operational challenge.
“As global fraud and cybersecurity incidents continue to rise, corporations recognize the need to bolster their protective measures and improve employee understanding of how to safeguard finances,” said Burke. “To achieve real success, organizations and their employees need to be better able to identify and deter fraud attempts. This should be a responsibility shared by businesses and their financial institutions, beginning with better education.”
