Riding the blockchain wave

The #technology underpinning cryptocurrencies such as #Bitcoin may well revolutionise the way we do business, with new applications extending across all sectors of the economy.

The future is only ever just around the corner. Technologies that are already available today have the potential to radically transform the world we live in. One such technology is #blockchain, a distributed ledger technology best known as the infrastructure behind digital currency Bitcoin.

For some time, CommBank’s Innovation Lab in Sydney has been at the forefront of blockchain research. What’s increasingly clear to us is that blockchain’s potential reaches well beyond the financial services sector. In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that blockchain could revolutionise our whole economy.

At the heart of blockchain’s potential is a decentralised structure that does away with the need for third-party authorisations or centralised ledgers. Instead, blockchain creates an open, shared digital record, using a peer-to-peer network of participants to verify and approve every transaction, making transactions completely transparent and secure.

In addition to making transactions completely transparent, it can contain a limitless amount of information, making reconciliation and execution virtually frictionless.