3,016 research outputs found
The Impact of Blockchain Technology on Financial Transactions
Blockchain technology could emerge as a disruptive innovation that streamlines financial transactions and attenuates their cost. Therefore, the financial industry must assess the opportunities and challenges presented by the technology. As a grand breakthrough, it could transform financial transactions and introduce new possibilities for established financial institutions as well as for new entrants. At the same time, incumbents and startups need to overcome technological, regulatory, and adoption challenges before blockchain technology can become a mainstream reality. Despite its potential, the literature on its impact on financial transactions is still fragmented, with weak empirical insights and limited theoretical explanations. Therefore, financial industry managers lack guidance on how to plan and prepare for the impact of blockchain technology on the operation of financial transactions.
Against that backdrop, this dissertation explores the asserted and potential impacts on financial transactions with emphasis on asset verification, record keeping, data privacy, and transaction costs. The dissertation adopts a pluralist approach to examine the subject matter based on three approaches: analysis of the extant literature about blockchain technology concerning financial transactions; perception analysis based on interviews with financial executives, subject matter experts, and researchers; and a theoretical interpretation using transaction cost theory. Therefore, the dissertation synthesizes insights from the three approaches to offer managers of financial institutions guidance concerning the opportunities and challenges of blockchain technology
Banking as an emerging technology: Hoare's Bank, 1702-1742
London’s financial market underwent dramatic change after 1700. More limited than Paris or Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, London became the leading financial centre in Europe in the eighteenth century. There is an extensive and growing literature on the causes of this change, but comparatively little on the change itself. This article provides detailed information on the operation of the London financial market around 1700 by describing the operations of a nascent London bank.
Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs
This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc
Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs
This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc
Smart Contracts using Blockchain
The contract is the sovereign tool employed to manage agreements between entities in
today’s society. It plays a crucial role in a variety of different fields, ranging from politics
to finance. This fact implies the efficiency of these applications is determined in part by
the efficiency of the contracts they rely on.
Despite their important role, contracts have changed relatively little in the last few
centuries and remain based on an outdated technology of bureaucracy and procedures
done by hand. Such systems are full of unnecessary complications, are incredibly wasteful
in terms of time, money and resources, and are susceptible to human failure.
In the last few years, a type of contract represented by a computer program has
appeared. This concept, known as a smart contract, is based on the emerging blockchain
technology. Blockchain is a type of distributed system which assures the immutability of
data via the use of mathematically secure cryptographic techniques and that, as will be
discussed, is well-suited for the implementation of smart contract systems.
Transitioning contracts into the digital era would not only allow them to catch up
to the technological pace of society but also would be advantageous from a safety and
efficiency standpoint. This body of work will test the feasibility of using blockchain-based
smart contracts to facilitate the first steps of this evolution.
This thesis assembles a proof of concept platform that supports the specification and
execution of smart contracts on a blockchain network. This proof of concept will in
particular target the use case of opening a bank account, aiming to create an efficient,
permanent, reliable and safe process.
To achieve this, we constructed a Hyperledger Fabric network. We present herein
the system developed and discuss the nuances pertaining to deploying a codebase on a
blockchain, the evaluation of our system, and finally some visions for further development
of this and related use cases
Islamic Finance and the New Technology Challenges
Islamic finance, as a new economic paradigm based on ancient principles and rules, needs to embrace the new IT opportunities in order to be up to date with the contemporary financial industry. This process will become a “bridge” between the past and the future of socially responsible financing. The world’s financial and economic environment in our days is marked with immense inequality and imbalance. With the emergence of the global capital structures, solely ruled by the principles of the financial markets, the main focus of the economy shifted from real entrepreneurship to a form of capital bureaucracy. The financialization of the economy is a crucial phenomenon of contemporary capitalism, which could lead the world economy nowhere. Structures such as hedge funds, venture capitals and private equities create no real value. The main objective of such financial management firms is short term profits. By cutting costs (firing workers, reducing investments etc.) they have harmful impact on the companies they invest in. In order to evade deleterious effects on the economy, caused by the financialization, an interest free environment and financial technology (fintech) development need to be implemented. Islamic finance as a no-interest based intermediary can be fully embedded in such processes. By nature the Islamic mode of financing excludes the dealing with debt and purely monetary activity. The digital disruption can bring independence, shrink costs, and improve services as a whole. Blockchain is the technology which provides the contemporary base for development of the fintech. On one hand it enables maximum security of transactions and on the other it energizes crowdfunding. In the Islamic finance context of the profit and loss sharing paradigm, the new disruptive technology has the potential to reduce the risk and to increase productivity. In the end by increasing trust, blockchain and Islamic finance can mitigate debt-based financing
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