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According to CNBC, banks could be using bitcoin by the end of next year based on the development with the adoption of new cloud-based ledger technology called “blockchain”. According to a report by TABB research --  “Capital markets could adopt the technology behind bitcoin as early as next year, revolutionizing the industry by enabling more secure transactions and creating new streams of revenue.

According to a recent article in the Economist, “the NASDAQ exchange will soon start using a blockchain-based system to record trades in privately held companies. The Bank of England, not known for technological flights of fancy, seems electrified: distributed ledgers, it concluded in a research note late last year, are a “significant innovation” that could have “far-reaching implications” in the financial industry.”

Today, Microsoft announced that it had partnered up with Brooklyn-based blockchain start-up ConsenSys to bring the cloud-based technology to financial institutions and other private parties in a much cheaper and faster way. The platform will be available to banks and insurance companies that are already using Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure platform. Microsoft said four large global financial institutions had already signed up to the service.

Blockchain technology is a distributed database that utilizes a continuously expanding list of data records that are strengthened against tampering and revision, even by operators of the data store’s nodes. The most common feature or application of the blockchain is the public ledger of transactions for cryptocurrencies developed in bitcoin. This record is enforced cryptographically and essentially works like a giant, cloud-based decentralized ledger that records every transaction and stores this information on a global network so it can’t be tampered.

TABB predict blockchain solutions will be applied to track syndicated loans by the second quarter of 2016 of banks, but other market sectors may take longer. For example, applying blockchain to derivatives will take up to five years to develop, while using blockchain to settle share trading is a decade away.

As blockchain technology gains momentum the Economist reported:  using “Ledgers that no longer need to be maintained by a company—or a government—may in time spur new changes in how companies and governments work, in what is expected of them and in what can be done without them. A realisation that systems without centralised record-keeping can be just as trustworthy as those that have them may bring radical change.”

As blockchain gains more mainstream use the management accountant will be impacted in many ways and we hope to provide additional information and updates.

Stay tuned.