Blockchain technology is an integral part of FinTech's future

Blockchain technology is perceived as "critical" for the future of financial services companies, a new report by Cognizant has shown.

A poll of more than 1,500 financial services executives from more than 500 companies worldwide found that 91 percent saw implementation of blockchain technology to be critical for the firm’s future.

However, the report found that there is still  "significant uncertainty" on how the blockchain system will develop.

Essentially all respondents (98 percent) believe blockchain will save them money. Roughly 75 percent expect revenues to grow five percent after implementation. Half (46 percent) think it will help with transparency, 40 percent with risk management, 39 percent with the speed of digitization, and 47 percent with data management.

Yet, 11 percent think it will reduce fraud.

"From opening new markets, to increasing cross-selling opportunities and even creating entirely new business models, financial firms that move quickly on blockchain, realizing the cost advantage while successfully providing added-value services, will triumph over their competition," said Lata Varghese, Cognizant VP and leader, Blockchain and distributed ledger consulting practice.

Almost half (48 percent)  of companies surveyed had a blockchain strategy in place, 42 percent have identified processes and functions. For more than half, however, understanding blockchain use cases is an important barrier to adoption.

Almost all (94 percent) don’t think culture and change management is a significant barrier to adoption, many do believe they’ll need to be a part of a network of partners, customers and competitors.

To read more about Blockchain, check out our guide here.

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