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eNaira Is It Here to Stay or Are Nigerians Going to Say ‘Nay’ by EOS Intelligence
by EOS Intelligence EOS Intelligence No Comments

eNaira: Is It Here to Stay or Are Nigerians Going to Say ‘Nay’?

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Although Nigeria boasts about its digital currency launch, there are contradictory opinions about eNaira’s subsequent adoption. The eNaira has the potential to impact Nigeria’s economy positively, however, it is not possible without its widespread acceptance.

CBDC – A global picture

Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is virtual currency or money issued and controlled by a country’s central bank. According to the Atlantic Council, a leading US-based think tank, 130 countries were considering a CBDC as of September 2023, while only 35 countries were exploring a CBDC as of May 2020. This steep rise in the number of countries considering CBDC in a span of just over three years shows an increasing interest in CBDC across the globe. Even more so, some 64 countries are already in an advanced phase of exploration of the currency (development, pilot, or launch phase).

Among the G20 countries, 19 are in the advanced stage of developing CBDC, and 9 out of these 19 G20 countries are in the pilot phase. There are some 11 countries that have launched a CBDC. China’s CBDC is in the pilot stage and is presently reaching 260 million people taking part in this pilot while being tested in more than 200 scenarios, including e-commerce, public transit, and stimulus payments. In Europe, the European Central Bank is currently on course to start its pilot for CBDC, the digital euro.

More than 20 other countries are stepping towards piloting their digital currency in 2023. Countries such as Australia, Thailand, and Russia plan on continuing pilot testing. Brazil and India intend to launch their CBDC in 2024.

eNaira – A choice or compulsion?

eNaira is Nigeria’s digital currency, issued and regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for retail use. It is a liability of the CBN, similar to coins and cash.

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are similar to eNaira in terms of the underlying Bitcoin technology. Apart from this, both cryptocurrencies and eNaira are stored in digital wallets and can be used for payments and digital transfers across the globe to anyone with an eNaira account at no cost.

However, what makes eNaira different from Bitcoin or Ethereum is that the CBN has access rights controls over the Nigerian digital currency. Secondly, the eNaira is not a financial asset but rather a digital form of the physical naira, to which it is pegged at parity.

With the release of eNaira in October 2021, Nigeria became the first country in the African continent and second in the world after the Bahamas to launch a CBDC. Major motivations behind launching CBDC in Nigeria included encouraging financial inclusion, improving cross-border transactions, complementing the current payment systems, and enabling diaspora remittances. However, the adoption of eNaira has been low, with only 0.5% of the Nigerian population using CBDC within a year of its launch.

In a rather desperate move to compel its people to adopt eNaira, the government caused cash shortages in the country. This resulted in protests, riots, and unrest among Nigerians. As a result of the currency shortages in early 2022, Nigeria witnessed a 12-fold increase in the number of e-Naira wallets to 13 million since October 2021.

As of July 2023, the value of transactions had also seen a 63% rise to N22 billion (US$48 million) since its launch in October 2021. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 98.5% of the eNaira wallets were inactive one year after the launch of the CBDC, meaning 98.5% of eNaira wallets have not been used even once during any given week. These low levels of activity mirror the low public adoption of eNaira.

eNaira Is It Here to Stay or Are Nigerians Going to Say ‘Nay’ by EOS Intelligence

eNaira Is It Here to Stay or Are Nigerians Going to Say ‘Nay’ by EOS Intelligence

Motivations to launch eNaira: Strong enough to sustain adoption?

CBN conceived multiple advantages of adopting eNaira, such as fostering financial inclusion, facilitating remittances, and minimizing informality in the economy. These serve as motivations for launching eNaira and are expected to take shape with the eNaira becoming more widespread along with strong support of the regulatory system.

Fostering financial inclusion

Currently, eNaira can be used by people with bank accounts, but the idea is to expand the coverage to anyone with a mobile phone, even if they do not have a bank account. Around 38% of the adult population in Nigeria do not have bank accounts. If this section of the adult population could be provided with access to eNaira through mobile phones, Nigeria could potentially achieve 90% financial inclusion.

Facilitating remittances

Nigeria is one of the Sub-Saharan African countries that receives considerable remittances. In 2019, Nigeria received US$24 billion in remittances, which are usually made through international money transfer operators. These operators charge around 1-5% of the value of the transaction as their fee. One of the motivations for launching eNaira is to reduce the costs associated with remittance transfers.

Minimizing informality in the economy

With more than half of the economy being informal, it becomes imperative for the Nigerian government to introduce a digital currency across the country to reduce the informality in the economy and increase the country’s tax revenues. Therefore, eNaira was launched in Nigeria to strengthen the tax base along with obtaining higher transparency in informal payments.

Can Nigeria overcome implementation challenges to spur eNaira adoption?

It comes as no surprise that Nigeria is facing a range of adoption barriers on its journey to eNaira’s widespread implementation. Apart from perceptual barriers such as considering eNaira wallets as deposits at the central bank, which might decrease the demand for deposits in commercial banks, there are cybersecurity risks and operational barriers linked to eNaira. These adoption barriers to Nigeria’s CBDC include a combination of factors such as lack of required tech infrastructure, lack of training of bank personnel managing the process, trust issues, and electricity and internet issues.

Lack of tech infrastructure

The CBN is looking to revamp the technological platform used for eNaira and was in talks for that with a company called R3 in early 2023. CBN is contemplating having complete control over the platform, while eNaira was initially developed in collaboration with a fintech multinational called Bitt. The change of technology platform vendor in less than two years might suggest a lack of vision of CBN regarding the technological infrastructure necessary for the seamless adoption of eNaira.

Lack of training

The CBN is expected to oversee the ledger and manage the system, while other financial institutions, such as banks, are to provide users with access to CBDC wallets. The bank staff is required to onboard users to the eNaira platform. However, it is observed that the bank staff is not sufficiently trained to be able to seamlessly bring users on board. This, in turn, negatively impacts the adoption of CBDC.

Trust issues

Nigeria has been considered a country with high money laundering and terrorist organizations funding risk (ML/TF). In February 2023, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global money laundering and terrorism funding inspection organization, put Nigeria on its grey list owing to Nigeria not having adequate measures to curb such activities. Similarly, Basel Institute of Governance, a non-profit organization focused on improving governance and preventing corruption and other financial crimes, in its 2022 global ranking on ML/TF risks, placed Nigeria 17th out of 128 countries, a high spot indicating a significant risk of ML/TF.

In the current design of CBDC in Nigeria, the CBN is equipped to monitor all users’ transactions using eNaira, potentially allowing it to detect and curb ML/TF activities and improve Nigeria’s standing in the risk rankings. However, this has turned out to be a double-edged sword in implementing eNaira. The high level of supervision of all transactions has brought apprehension amongst potential users in Nigeria, most of whom believe that eNaira was developed by the government to monitor the monetary transactions, breaching their right to privacy and potentially giving the government a tool to control them. This lack of trust significantly hampers the adoption of the CBDC in Nigeria.

Electricity and internet issues

With around 92 million people not having access to power in a population of 200 million, Nigeria has one of the lowest electricity access rates globally, as per the Energy Progress Report 2022 published by Tracking SDG 7. At the same time, the internet penetration in Nigeria stands at 55.4% in 2023. Seamless internet connectivity and power access are some of the critical prerequisites for the smooth implementation of the eNaira in Nigeria.

What would give eNaira adoption a much-needed push?

As the challenges to widespread adoption of the eNaira are multipronged, finding solutions to overcome the implementation challenges is not easy or quick.

One of the main infrastructural challenges, inadequate power and internet access, should be among the first to be addressed. One way to approach it is to create offline access to the eNaira platform. To achieve this, the CBN launched the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code for eNaira, meaning that Nigerians without internet-enabled phones can perform transactions with eNaira.

To facilitate rapid and seamless adoption of the eNaira, the CBN must make the CBDC available to everyone with a mobile phone. More and more people should be encouraged to use eNaira by incentivizing them through rebates while paying income tax. Another incentive example dates back to October 2022 when CBN offered discounts if people used eNaira to pay for cabs.

EOS Perspective

The eNaira has the potential to have a significant impact on the Nigerian economy. As transactions using eNaira are fully traceable, more widespread adoption of eNaira is expected to expand the country’s tax base by bringing higher transparency in payments, especially in informal markets. It will undoubtedly result in higher tax revenue, a development welcomed by the government.

With US$24 billion in remittance receipts in 2019, Nigeria is considered one of the key remittance destinations in Sub-Saharan Africa. As remittances are currently burdened with a 1-5% charge of the transaction value, removing these costs through the adoption of eNaira would bring more remittance income to the population and, indirectly, more capital to the Nigerian economy.

With the expanded tax base, cheaper and higher inflows of remittances, facilitated retail payments, welfare transfers, etc., the impact of the eNaira on the Nigerian economy is likely to be quite considerable. Indeed, at the time of launch, the CBN estimated that the eNaira should increase Nigeria’s GDP by US$29 billion over the first 10 years, contributing to the country’s economic growth and development. With the implementation challenges encountered so far, it is clear that these estimations were overly optimistic. Still, how well the CBN can do its homework and undertake well-directed steps to navigate the challenges remains to be seen.

Africa’s Fintech Market
by EOS Intelligence EOS Intelligence No Comments

Africa’s Fintech Market Striding into New Product Segments

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Fintech is certainly not a new concept in the African region. More than that: Africa has been a global leader in mobile money transfer services for some time. The market continues to evolve and the regional fintech players are now moving beyond just basic payment services to offer extended services, such as credit scoring, agricultural finance, etc. With Africa being significantly unbanked and still lacking financial infrastructure, fintech industry is at a unique position to bridge the gap between consumer needs and available financial solutions.

The African subcontinent is much behind many economies when it comes to financial inclusion and banking infrastructure owing to low levels of investment, under-developed infrastructure, and low financial literacy ratio. As per World Bank estimates, only about 20% of the population in the sub-Saharan African region have a bank account as compared with 92% of the population in advanced economies and 38% in low-middle income economies.

Related reading: Fintech Paving the Way for Financial Inclusion in Indonesia

This gap in the formal banking footprint has been largely plugged by the fintech sector in Africa, especially with regards to mobile payments. While in the developed economies, the fintech sector focuses on disrupting the incumbent banking system by offering better services and lower costs, in Africa it has the advantage of building and developing financial infrastructure. This is clear in the uptake of mobile fintech by the African population, making Africa a global leader in mobile payments and money transfers.

While in the developed economies, the fintech sector focuses on disrupting the incumbent banking system by offering better services and lower costs, in Africa it has the advantage of building and developing financial infrastructure.

However, mobile payments have simply been the first phase in the development of digital finance in Africa. The penetration and mass acceptance of mobile wallets have opened doors for the next phase of digital financial services in Africa. These include lending and insurance, agricultural finance, and wealth management.

Moreover, owing to the success achieved by mobile wallets, global investors are keenly investing in fintech start-ups that are innovating in the sector. For instance, Venture capital firm, Village Capital, partnered with Paypal to set up a program named Fintech Africa 2018. The program aims to support start-ups across Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania, which provide financial services beyond mobile payments (especially in the field of insurtech, alternative credit scoring, and fintech solutions for agriculture, energy, education, and health).

Africa’s Fintech Market Striding into New Product Segments

Agricultural finance

Agriculture is the livelihood of more than half of Africa’s workforce, however, due to limited access to finance and technologies, most farmers operate much below their potential capabilities. Due to this, Africa homes about 60% of the world’s non-cultivated tillable land.

However, in recent years, several established fintech players as well as start-ups have built solutions to provide financial support to the region’s agricultural sector.

In late 2018, Africa’s leading mobile wallet company, Cellulant, launched Agrikore, a blockchain-based digital-payment, contracting, and marketplace system that connects small farmers with large commercial customers. The company started its operations from Nigeria and is expected to commence business in Kenya in the second half of 2019.

Under their business model, when a large commercial order is placed on the platform, it is automatically broken into smaller quantities and shared with farmers on the platform (based on their capacity and proximity). Once the farmer accepts the order for the set quantity offered to him, the platform connects the farmer with registered transporters, quality inspectors, etc., who all log their activities on the blockchain and are paid through Cellulant’s digital wallets. All this is done on a blockchain to ensure transparency.

Related reading: Connecting Africa – Global Tech Players Gaining a Foothold in the Market

Another Nigeria-based company, Farmcrowdy, has been revolutionizing financing in Nigeria’s local agriculture sector by connecting small-scale farmers with farm sponsors (from Nigeria as well as other regions), who invest in farm cycles. Farmers benefit by receiving advice and training on best agriculture practices in addition to the financial support. Sponsors and farmers receive a pre-set percentage of the profits on the harvest in that cycle. In December 2017, the company received US$1 million seed investment from a group of venture capitalists including Cox Enterprises, Techstars Ventures, Social Capital, Hallett Capital, and Right-Side Capital, as well as five angel investors.

In addition to these, there are several other players, such as Kenya-based Twiga Foods (that connects rural farmers to urban retailers in an informal market), Kenya-based Tulaa (that provides famers with access to inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, as well as to finance, and markets through an m-commerce marketplace), Kenya-based, FarmDrive (that helps small farmers access credit from local banks through the use of data analytics), etc.

While most ventures in this space are currently based in Nigeria and Kenya, the sector is expected to grow significantly in the near future and is likely to expand into other parts of Africa as well.

In terms of expected trends in services development, with growing number of solutions and in turn apps, it is likely that consumers will tilt towards all-inclusive offerings, i.e. apps that provide solutions across the entire agricultural value chain.

Alternative credit scoring and lending

Large number of Africans have limited access to finance and formal lending options. Since there is a limited number of bank accounts in use, most people do not have a formal credit history and the cost of credit risk assessment remains high. Due to this, large portion of the population resorts to peer-to-peer lending or loans from Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations (SACCOs), usually at rates higher than the market rate.

Fintech sector has been working towards reducing the cost of credit risk assessment through the use of big data and machine learning. It uses information about a person’s mobile phone usage, payment data, and several other such parameters, which are available in abundance, to calculate credit score for the individual.

Several companies, such as Branch International, have been following a similar model, wherein, through their app, they analyze the information on customer’s phone to assess their credit worthiness. On similar lines, Tala (which currently operates in Kenya), collates about 10,000 data points on a customer’s mobile phone to determine the user’s credit score.

Fintech sector has been working towards reducing the cost of credit risk assessment through the use of big data and machine learning. It uses information about a person’s mobile phone usage, payment data, and several other such parameters, which are available in abundance, to calculate credit score for the individual.

Other business models include a crowdfunding platform, on which individuals from across the world can offer small loans to local African entrepreneurs. Kiva, a global crowd lending platform, has been partnering with several companies across Africa over the past decade (such as Zoona for Zambia and Malawi in 2012) for providing financial support to entrepreneurs. Kiva vets the entrepreneurs eligible for the loan and the loan is repaid over a period of time. Post that lenders can either withdraw the amount or retain it with the company to support another entrepreneur.

Currently, about 20% of all fintech start-ups in Africa are focusing on lending solutions, with investors backing them with significant amount of funding. This is primarily due to a growing demand for financing in Africa. Moreover, limited barriers with regards to regulations for digital lending start-ups also make it easy for companies to enter this space and test the market before investing large sums of money or entering into a partnership with a bank.

This may change in the long run, however, with regulators increasingly monitoring this growing sector. For instance, in March 2018, the Kenyan government published a draft bill under which digital lenders will be licensed by a new Financial Markets Conduct Authority and lenders will be bound by interest rate caps that are set by the authority.

Insurance and wealth management

Apart from agriculture financing and credit scoring and lending, there are several digital start-ups in the space of insurance and wealth management. There are limited traditional solutions for insurance and wealth management in Africa, a fact that presents significant potential for growth in these categories.

South Africa’s Pineapple Insurance is a leading player in the insurtech space. The company operates as a decentralized peer-to-peer insurance company wherein members take a picture of the product they want to insure and the company uses artificial intelligence to calculate an appropriate premium. The premium is stored in the member’s Pineapple wallet and when a claim is paid out, a proportionate amount is withdrawn from the wallets of all the members in that category. Moreover, members can withdraw unused premium deposits at the end of every year making the process completely transparent.

In addition to Pineapple Insurance, there are several other companies that are making waves in the insurtech sector. These include, South-Africa based Naked Insurance (which uses artificial intelligence to offer low cost car insurance), Kenya-based GrassRoots Bim (which leverages mobile technology to develop insurance solutions for the mass market), and Tanzania-based Jamii Africa (which offers mobile micro-health insurance for the informal sector). Companies such as Piggybank.ng in Nigeria and Uplus in Rwanda, also provide digital solutions for savings and wealth management.

Apart from these fintech solutions, a lot of innovations are also taking place in the payments space. Several companies are working towards extending the reach of Africa’s mobile payment solutions. For example, a leading Kenyan mobile payment company, DPO Group, partnered with MasterCard to launch a virtual card that can be topped with mobile money by the end of 2019. The card has a 16-digit number, an expiry date, and a security code similar to a debit card, thereby facilitating transactions beyond Kenya, with rest of the word as well.

EOS Perspective

There is an immense opportunity in the fintech space in Africa at the moment. Most start-ups are currently operating in Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria, and are expected to move to other parts of the continent once they have achieved certain scalability and outside investment. Having said that, foreign investors are also keenly observing movement in this space and are on the lookout for fresh concepts that have the capability to build new offerings as well disrupt existing financial solutions.

At the same time, with the industry being relatively new, many of its aspects remain unknown, a fact that increases risk of investing in the sector. Currently, a lot of these solutions depend heavily on data (especially through mobile usage). However, there are increasing regulations regarding data privacy across the globe and over the course of time, this trend is also expected to reach Africa.

Moreover, direct regulations regarding the fintech sector may also impact the business of several new players. Currently the companies are evolving fast and the regulators are playing catch-up, however, once the industry becomes seasoned, clear regulations are expected to ensure safety of the money involved. Fintech companies are also vulnerable to risks arising from online fraud, hacking, data breaches, etc., and regulations are extremely important to keep these in check as well.

While the sector enjoys limited scrutiny at the moment, entry and operations may not be as simplistic in the long run as they seem now. Despite this, the sector is expected to prosper and witness further innovation that will drive it into new territories to satisfy the currently unmet financial needs of the African population.

by EOS Intelligence EOS Intelligence No Comments

Can Cryptocurrencies Dent the Trillion-Dollar Banking Industry?

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Cryptocurrencies (such as bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin) have definitely been the talk of the town this year. With their prices rising beyond bounds, everyone is sharing their two cents on the future of this fairly new concept of digital currency. Among these, are also players of the established financial system, which up till now have largely ignored cryptocurrencies terming them as a short-lived phenomenon. However, this has changed as bitcoin prices continue to soar and banks and other financial institutions evaluate not only the merits of the new currency and the technology behind it, but also the perils of not acting swiftly enough to adapt to the changing financial market scenario.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain – what are we talking about?

Owing to an unparalleled rise in its prices, cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, have garnered massive interest from the public at large, however, very few understand how they and the technology that underpins them actually work.

Cryptocurrency is a digital form of money that is secure and largely anonymous. It uses encryption techniques to regulate the creation of the currency units and verify the transactions, thereby eliminating the need of a third-party verification (that is conducted by banks in case of traditional currency). However, to better comprehend the concept of cryptocurrencies it is vital to understand the core technology that enables its existence – blockchain technology.

Blockchain is a global distributed ledger or database of transactions running on an expansive peer to peer network, where transactions are securely stored and confirmed without the need of a central certifying body. Each and every transaction ever made historically is noted transparently and any new transaction is accepted/verified on the basis of all previous transactions undertaken (i.e. to ensure that the person undertaking the transaction has the credit to carry out the transaction).

Blockchain is increasingly finding application across industries – we wrote about its entry into the healthcare sector in our publication Blockchain Technology – Next Frontier in Healthcare? in March 2017.

The next aspect is to understand how cryptocurrencies are created/transacted. A new unit of currency is created when a “cryptocurrency miner” solves a complex computational algorithm to confirm a transaction and add it to the blockchain. For their service (i.e. to confirm and conduct the transaction), the miner generates a certain amount of the cryptocurrency for himself, thereby creating additional units of the cryptocurrency. Having said that, cryptocurrencies are limited in number (for example, there can only be 21 million Bitcoins and 84 million litecoins).

Cryptocurrencies are stored in a digital wallet, using which the user can spend the currency as well as check his balance.

Leading companies increasingly accept cryptocurrencies

While the reach of cryptocurrencies still remains largely limited when compared with conventional money, their acceptability and transaction value have been steadily rising. Several leading companies now accept bitcoins (the leading cryptocurrency) as a form of payment. These include Subway, Microsoft, Reddit, Expedia.com, WordPress.com, Virgin Galactic, Tesla, etc.

McDonalds announced that it will start accepting bitcoins in 2018, while Argos (a retailer) as well as British Airways have also expressed their intent to start accepting bitcoins as a mean of payments by 2018. In addition, the daily total value of bitcoins being transacted has also seen a substantial rise from about US$200 million worth of bitcoins being transacted daily in January 2017 to US$2 billion by November 2017. However, the per-day volume of transactions has witnessed a comparatively moderate rise as they ranged around 200,000-300,000 transactions per day at the beginning of the year and increased to about 350,000-450,000 number of daily transactions by December 2017.

Central banks evaluate risks to the banking system

This momentous rise in their popularity and acceptability over the past years has made central banks across the world realize and evaluate the risk posed by this revolutionary technology.

Cryptocurrencies bite into banks’ space

The traditional money used across the globe gains its credibility by being backed by a centralized authority (mainly a central bank of a country). However, cryptocurrencies remove the need of a third-party guarantor and depend on un-hackable peer-to-peer (blockchain) technology to guarantee value (i.e. when a transaction is made using cryptocurrency, the miners validate the transaction and unlock a small amount of cryptocurrency from the network as a compensation for their service.) Thus, in simple terms, they make the job of banks (who act as a third-party in terms of all money transactions) redundant.

Therefore, when using cryptocurrencies, consumers save on commissions that they have been paying to banks for processing financial transactions. These include credit and debit card transaction fee, international money transfer fee, clearing and settlement fee, among several others. This not only saves customers money but also time.

Moreover, the use of cryptocurrencies makes financing easier as it opens another avenue for financing for people who have been turned down by banks or other traditional channels. In case better terms and rates are offered in this form of peer-to-peer financing, customers eligible for bank loans may also steer towards digital money for financing.

Explore our other Perspectives on blockchain

Decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies protects the client identity

Another advantage of cryptocurrencies over conventional currency is security and privacy. Blockchain technology is known to protect client information and identity better than banks. Since it is a peer-to-peer network that is distributed across a host of computers across the world, it is less susceptible to cyberattacks when compared with bank servers that are usually located at one place (thereby making attacks comparatively simpler). Thus, the decentralized nature of blockchain and in turn cryptocurrencies makes it more secure than traditional banking. The anonymous nature of the transactions also makes it attractive to a certain type of customers who value privacy.

These factors pose a significant risk to the traditional banking system, which must act swiftly if it does not wish to cede further ground to cryptocurrencies. In order to compete with digital money, banks need to improve services, especially by offering digital services at a lower fee, and offer similar real-time services that cryptocurrencies offer. Moreover, they must realize the end of their monopoly on financial transactions and get rid of standard manipulations such as charging hidden fees on several financial services, such as credit and debit cards.

Banks start to embrace the revolution

Banks can also seize certain opportunities presented by the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies. These include providing escrow services, helping customers exchange their money for bitcoins, etc. For instance, in May 2017, Norway’s largest online-only bank, Skandiabanken announced its plans to offer clients the ability to link bank accounts to their cryptocurrency holdings.

At the same time, several banks (both central and private) are also looking at creating their own digital currency and are showing keen interest in understanding and adapting blockchain technology for interbank transfers.

People’s Bank of China (China’s central bank) is developing its own digital currency in an effort to reduce transaction costs, expand the outreach of financial services to rural areas and increase the efficiency of its monetary policy. On similar lines, Russia’s Communications Minister has announced in October 2017 the country’s plans to create and launch state-controlled digital currency, which would use blockchain to decentralize control and improve trust but would be issued and tracked like conventional currency. The Dutch Central Bank has also created its own cryptocurrency for internal circulation only to get an understanding of its working. On the other hand, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank have launched a joint research project on the adoption of blockchain technology.

The 2017 Global Blockchain Benchmarking Study, published in September, analyzed 200 central banks and stated that about 20% of central banks plan to deploy blockchain within the next two years, while about 40% plan to apply it within the decade. Moreover, about 80% claim to be researching blockchain technology with the aim of issuing their own cryptocurrencies.

On the private side, in July 2017, the Digital Trade Chain Consortium, which consists of seven European banks, namely Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC, Natixis, Rabobank, Societe Generale, and Unicredit awarded a contract to IBM to build a digital trade platform that will run on IBM’s cloud.

In another deal, IBM is working along with Japan’s, Aeon Financial Service, to develop a blockchain-based financial platform to provide settlement and transactions for both corporate as well as retail financial services, which will include virtual currency payments between individuals and businesses, loyalty points allocation and redemption, and transaction data management.

In September 2017, six major banking corporations (Barclays, Credit Suisse, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, HSBC, MUFG, and State Street) announced that they are partnering up to create a cryptocurrency of their own. The digital coin that is being called “utility settlement coin” would be used for clearing and settling transactions for these banks globally over a blockchain. Currently, the banks are in talks with central bank regulators regarding the same and are expected to launch their commercial-grade blockchain by 2018.

While banks may be wary of the credibility of the currently regulated cryptocurrencies, most of them agree on and see blockchain technology as the difference-maker and are open to adopting blockchain to upgrade their services, such as improving payment systems. As per experts, blockchain technology can save the financial industry US$20 billion per year by 2020.

Cryptocurrencies’ drawbacks go beyond threats just to the banking system

However, not everything about cryptocurrencies works well, as the current set of cryptocurrencies being traded also has some shortcomings when compared with the traditional financial system.

While the anonymity of transactions may be seen as a positive to a certain group of users, it does pose a threat to the society in general. The anonymity makes cryptocurrencies a convenient choice for illegal activities, such as money laundering. Moreover, it also provides a window to terrorist financing as money can switch hands without being traced.

Cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, also have a drawback of being limited in number (the number of bitcoin is limited to 21 million). This limitation makes cryptocurrencies somewhat similar to the gold standard currency, wherein a country’s currency has a value directly linked to gold. This monetary approach has been deserted by most economists as this money supply policy that does not factor in the fact that changes in demand generate large fluctuations in prices (as being witnessed in bitcoins presently) and these fluctuations are not practical in the day-to-day workings of the society, especially wage payments. Therefore, while demand for bitcoin may be increasing, it cannot largely replace traditional currency due to such intrinsic characteristics.

Moreover, the current increase in bitcoin demand is speculated to be a bubble by several analysts who claim that the exponential rise in prices has more to do with an ongoing investment frenzy to make quick profits and exit, rather than actual established increase in usage.

cryptocurrencies

EOS Perspective

Whether it is a long-term replacement to traditional currency or not, cryptocurrencies cannot be ignored. The unimaginable rise in the prices of bitcoin (from close to US$1,000 in January 2017 to about US$17,000 in December 2017) has compelled banks to pay close attention to this upcoming competitor. While cryptocurrencies do offer several benefits (such as elimination of third-party, easier financing, and greater security) that are enticing consumers to move beyond traditional currencies and banking, they are no position to uproot the gigantic money market. However, that does not mean that banks can just ignore them.

While cryptocurrencies do offer several benefits, they are in no position to uproot the gigantic money market. However, that does not mean that banks can just ignore them

Banks must work towards innovating digital services and making them cheaper and faster. Cryptocurrencies also open doors for banks to launch few supplementary services, such as providing escrow services and syncing their bank accounts with their cryptocurrency digital wallets. While these may be short term goals, banks are most interested in testing and adopting blockchain technology especially for clearing and settling of inter-bank transactions.

While cryptocurrencies are unlikely to uproot the banking system any time soon, we believe it should be considered that blockchain has the capability to impact the financial sector the same way Internet impacted many industries back in the 1990’s.

by EOS Intelligence EOS Intelligence No Comments

Can Poland Remain A ‘Green Island’ Amid Crisis-struck Europe?

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Since 2008, the economic crisis has been the subject of countless news headlines across the world with numerous economies sliding towards the verge of painful recession. Europe has been severely hit as well, with only one state, Poland, performing considerably better than those once believed to be more stable and better prepared for potential turmoil, resulting in the Polish economy being dubbed the ‘green island’ among weaker, crisis-ridden EU states.

As the economic crisis wave spread across the globe in 2008, it hit virtually all economies. The slowdown was visible in form of declining economic growth rates, which soon changed into negative growth in economies of Europe, USA and Japan. Interestingly, Poland was the only economy in the EU to register a positive growth during 2009, and, despite visible slowdown due to recession hitting its trading partners, Poland has managed to storm though the crisis reasonably well.

Real GDP Growth Rate 2009

Real GDP Growth Rate - 2000-2014F

Since the onset of the crisis, Poland’s good economic performance has surprised many analysts. Obviously, the country did not remain unaffected, and a look at a trend line of the country’s growth rates over the past decade clearly shows how its performance has mirrored EU’s economic struggles. Nevertheless, the Polish economy managed to grow throughout the crisis, and this year, again, as the EU economy is expected to shrink by 0.3%, Polish economy is expected to expand (though modestly). Poland’s position in terms of GDP per capita increased considerably by 11 percentage points, to 65% of EU’s average in 2011. The economic growth and persistence in defying the crisis is believed to be largely underpinned by strong internal consumption, as Poles took long to believe that the crisis could have an actual impact on them, thus did not cut down on their expenditure (e.g. in 2011, the Polish retail sector enjoyed one of the highest y-o-y growth rates in retail sales during the December holiday season in Europe, second only to Russia). This strong internal consumption, paired with attractiveness for foreign investors in production-oriented sectors, along with postponed entry to the Euro zone (a fact that has helped shield Poland from Euro quakes) and limited household and corporate debt, allowing for greater stability of banking assets – these factors are typically cited as reasons for Poland’s good performance amid the crisis.

However, there seems to be an air of negativity and the country might get its share of the crisis after all. Just in November 2012, the IMF and Morgan Stanley slashed Polish GDP 2013 growth forecasts by almost half, down to 1.75% and 1.5%, respectively, as rather modest export gains are expected to fail to offset weaker consumer spending. Indeed, private consumption boom is likely to significantly cool down, as for an average Polish citizen the situation does not appear bright. The mood amongst Poles seem to no longer reflect the earlier enthusiasm, with opinions that good performance of Polish economy is now more of a government propaganda, since what they see on a daily basis contradicts the positive overtone of analysts’ words. The change in moods has been already captured – in November 2012, the Indicator of Consumer Trust (BWUK) was down by 5.3 percentage points over November 2011.

In reality, Poland’s position in EU’s GDP per capita statistics improved more as a result of a decline of the EU average, rather than actual improvement in Poles’ incomes and standard of living. The accumulated negative impact of adverse situation in the country’s Euro zone-based trading partners, leads to increased cautiousness of firms, who are introducing cost control measures, including layoffs. Rising unemployment (registered unemployment reaching close to 13% overall and as high as 28% amongst graduates in November 2012), together with growing fear of losing jobs, as well as limited credit activity, seem to have put brakes on consumer spending and thus internal consumption, an element once considered as one of the fundamental forces allowing Poland to withstand the pressures of the crisis. The mood is increasingly pessimistic, and the Poles have now started to change their shopping habits – they buy less, think twice, postpone high-value purchases, downgrade to cheaper equivalents and demand higher value for money. Poles are finally increasingly aware of the economic storm going through neighbouring economies, and realize that they do not live on a safe ‘green island’ any more. This fear is escalated by recurring news and discussions filled with warnings of 2013 brining the crisis full-on to Poland. And what is definitely not helping is the opposition leaders’ lack of political will to constructively work with the government in averting the impending crisis.

Many economists urge Poles to remain calm and claim that there is no reason to panic (at least, not yet). Though the slowdown in economic growth is a fact, consumers’ calm approach is definitely recommended, as fear of the future might multiply the slowdown, resembling a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, one has to keep in mind that consumption levels, strongly correlated with consumer sentiments, has no capacity to remain the single force driving economic growth. Several cushions that previously protected the Polish economy slowly cease to exist – continuous, high value public spending, favourable VAT, weak currency that supported Polish exporters and high inflow of EU funds to sponsor infrastructure investments are becoming a story of the past. In this negative scenario, consumers’ wishful thinking, positive attitude and frequent shopping trips might turn out far too weak to lift Poland’s economy as Europe and the Euro zone continue to sink.

It seems that the story of the ‘green island’ may not remain true for long.

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