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Blockchain Paving its Way into the Retail Industry
by EOS Intelligence EOS Intelligence No Comments

Blockchain Paving Its Way into Retail Industry

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Blockchain technology, which initially became popular with cryptocurrency (especially bitcoin), is now making its way into many other industries, including retail. Though still in its infancy, blockchain holds tremendous potential for retailers and has applications across supply chain data management, customer retention through loyalty programs, digital advertising, among many others. While several industry experts have proclaimed blockchain to be the next revolutionary technology in the retail sector, it is yet to be seen if these applications gain commercial acceptability (or remain niche solutions for niche products).

While the financial services industry has been one of the early adopters of blockchain technology, other sectors are also increasingly realizing the potential that blockchain can unlock for their businesses.

One such sector is retail, which is increasingly going digital – shedding its paper-based and centralized way of doing business. With an increasingly demanding customer and growing need for transparency, blockchain technology is expected to play a big role in the retail sector.

In addition to its inherent application as a payment-medium supporter (i.e. increasing acceptance of cryptocurrencies as a payment mode by retailers), blockchain has several other applications in the retail space – encompassing supply chain management, customer loyalty programs, and digital advertising.

Blockchain in supply chain

Blockchain helps improve transparency

Blockchain technology makes it possible to record every touchpoint of the product’s life as it moves through the supply chain – from manufacturer to shipper to supplier to seller – adding blocks of verifiable record to the product’s heritage.

For instance, if a supermarket is selling a box of cookies, blockchain data would record exactly when, where, and by whom the cookies were made, as well as what ingredients were used during manufacturing. By placing the cookies supply chain on the blockchain, the process becomes more transparent through inerasable tracking of how cookies have been handled at each node all the way up to the store shelves. This makes any affected ingredient traceable faster. For instance, if milk or eggs used in the cookies were affected due to poor storage, the affected ingredient (or its batch) could be traced back to the storage location and could be withdrawn from the warehouse without the tedious and error-prone process of checking each supply chain node. This ensures greater food safety and helps hold suppliers accountable throughout the chain. This is also useful in case of tracing of organic products where it is particularly important to trace whether each ingredient used to make a product is organic and matches the claims made by the producer.

There are several players in the industry who are already taking advantage of the benefits brought to their operations by blockchain. One of the largest retail giants, Walmart, has partnered with IBM and has been working together since October 2016 to develop a food safety blockchain technology called, IBMs Food Trust, to facilitate the digitization of the food supply chain process. The technology, which was previously in its testing phase, was launched for commercial use in October 2018. With the help of this technology, the source of the product can be tracked in 2.2 seconds, which previously could take up to seven days (with the use of paper-based ledgers).

In September 2018, Walmart announced a Food Trust Initiative, under which it has requested all its greens suppliers to upload data about their produce on the blockchain and ensure end-to-end traceability by September 2019. It is likely that the company extends the use of this technology to other fresh foods and vegetable suppliers in future.

Post the commercial launch of the IBM Food Trust platform in October 2018, France-based retail giant, Carrefour, also announced that it will be using IBM’s blockchain technology to track animal and vegetable product lines. Furthermore, it expects to expand this technology to other fresh products by 2022.

Blockchain Paving Its Way into the Retail Industry

Blockchain effectively combats food-related fraud

Another issue that blockchain helps combat in the retail space is food-related fraud, i.e. the misrepresentation of product contents by substituting the ingredients with cheaper alternatives. It is estimated that the global food industry suffers losses of about US$40 billion annually due to food fraud. An example of such a fraud was the Tesco horsemeat scandal in 2013, where some of Tesco’s packaged beef meals were found to include 60% horsemeat (undeclared on the label).

To fight such frauds, one of the world’s largest e-commerce players, Alibaba, has partnered with four Australian and New-Zealand-based companies, among whom are Blackmores (an Australian health supplement company) and Fonterra (a multinational dairy co-operative) to create a food tracing system built on blockchain technology. The project entered into its pilot phase in 2018. Through this system, Tmall Global’s (Alibaba’s international online marketplace) customers in China will be able to trace the goods that they order online (from partnering companies) across each node of the supply chain before the goods are finally delivered. The partnership is not only expected to help customers track the supply chain of food ordered online but also to prevent food fraud thanks to greater visibility and traceability of such fraudulent actions potentially attempted by producers.

Blockchain helps bring down the counterfeit luxury goods market

As a digital ledger where multiple stakeholders share and authenticate the same information, blockchain also makes counterfeiting more difficult. Counterfeiting is a big issue in the luxury and premium goods market owing to high prices and limited availability. The scale of counterfeiting in the luxury retail segment is overwhelming and it is sometimes nearly impossible to distinguish legitimate goods from the counterfeit ones. Forbes estimated the counterfeit luxury goods market in 2018 to be worth approximately US$1.2 trillion.

However, the use of blockchain technology can help luxury brands fight against the menace of counterfeiting. By using blockchain, companies can track every link in their supply chain and customers can access information to ensure the origins of the product and its authenticity.

Greats, a US-based premium sneaker brand, has been using blockchain and embedding smart tags in its footwear since 2016. Customers can use their smartphones to scan the tags to verify the authenticity of the sneakers.

The use of blockchain technology can help luxury brands (and other retail companies) fight against the menace of counterfeiting. By using blockchain, companies can track every link in their supply chain and customers can access this information through smartphones to ensure the origins of the product and its authenticity.

In 2018, a Paris-based blockchain company, Arianee, announced that it will be building a registry to combat counterfeiting of luxury brands, where every product will be classified with a unique token that differentiates it from the rest of the products.

Another example of this is De Beers, one of the world’s largest diamond producers, which along with five other diamond players (Diacore, Diarough, KGK Group, Rosy Blue NV, and Venus Jewel) has developed a blockchain platform, called Tracr in 2017. Through this platform, a diamond can be tracked from miner to end customer, i.e. throughout its complete value chain, using ethereum blockchain technology. In 2018, De Beers announced that it has successfully tracked 100 high-value diamonds along the value chain during the pilot run of its blockchain platform. The platform is expected to bring transparency in the diamond trade through physical identification of diamonds. A diamond could be tracked through its unique number from mining to cutting to polishing and to retail, which will ensure its purity.

Owing to its ability to empower companies to track, trace, and authenticate their products from the point of origin to the retail shelf, blockchain is likely to become the standard in supply chain tracking for the retail sector. However, this application is currently in its nascent stage of development and is being experimented on by only few large and niche players before it reaches industry-wide adoption.

Blockchain in customer loyalty programs

Customer loyalty points is another area where blockchain could be considered very useful. Loyalty programs generally work by awarding points to customer account for each purchase, which later can be redeemed for discounts on future purchases. While it follows the principle that retaining existing customers is less expensive than attracting new customers, loyalty programs are not always successful.

Most loyalty programs are centralized, where the customer could only redeem its value with the same retailer (or in some cases a small group of retailers), thereby limiting their use and appeal. Moreover, in many cases, loyalty programs also have stipulations that further restrict the use of the points and reduce the program’s perceived value, which in turn results in lower loyalty of the customer. According to Colloquy Loyalty Census 2017, there were approximately 3,000 loyalty programs in North America, where 6.7 trillion points were issued every year and about 21 trillion points were dormant or not used. This suggests that more often than not, customers find loyalty programs more exhausting than benefitting, defeating the entire purpose of having loyalty programs.

Blockchain technology allows customers the flexibility to use their loyalty points when and how they please. Blockchain-based loyalty programs award customers with tokens or cryptocurrencies instead of points, which could be redeemed by customers during future retail purchases and could even be redeemed for fiat currency (as the value of tokens grow overtime and do not expire).

This can be seen in the case of Rakutan’s loyalty program. In 2018, Rakutan, one of Japan’s largest retailers, announced an alt-coin, called Rakutan Coin, with which customers could redeem reward points for gifts at all Rakutan Group companies and also for other cryptocurrencies. The company has moved US$9 billion worth of existing Super Points (customer loyalty program points) into the blockchain to provide a boost to the Rakutan Coin.

Blockchain-based loyalty programs award customers with tokens or cryptocurrencies instead of points, which could be redeemed by customers during future retail purchases and could even be redeemed for fiat currency.

In another example, in 2017, University of New South Wales in Australia partnered with LoyaltyX, an experimental loyalty agency for a blockchain loyalty research project, wherein students and staff earned US$5 of ether (cryptocurrency ethereum) for every ten transactions made at any of the eleven campus retailers including Boost Juice (Australian fruit juice and smoothie retail outlet) and IGA (Australian chain of supermarkets). It was found that 86% of the participants were more attracted to earn cryptocurrencies where they had the option to redeem them for fiat currency.

Thus, blockchain-powered programs seem to encourage customers to engage in the loyalty programs as they not only curb the problem of set expiration of traditional loyalty points but also give the power to the customer to use the tokens as and when they require with any retailer. This is likely to help retailers renew customer interest in their loyalty programs, which in turn is likely to improve brand loyalty.

In addition to adoption in the retail space, players from other related industries are also experimenting with blockchain-based loyalty programs. In 2018, American Express (an American financial services company) partnered with Boxed (an American online wholesale retailer) to make its membership rewards program more versatile by integrating blockchain. With blockchain, merchants will be able to create custom membership rewards program for American Express card holders. The power to structure the offers will be with the merchants, whereas American Express will have the right to regulate the products or brands being promoted.

Also in the same year, Singapore Airlines partnered with KPMG and Microsoft and created a blockchain-based digital wallet KrisPay, where customers can turn travel miles into units of payment that can be used with partner merchants such as eateries, beauty parlors, gas stations, and some retailers, including LEGO store outlets within Singapore. This shows that some large brands are experimenting with this technology for their loyalty programs.

While integration of blockchain seems to be the ideal solution to invigorate the fading customer loyalty programs, it is still in its embryonic stage. Such applications need mass adaption to be successful and this will require significant time and investments.

Moreover, the adoption and success of blockchain-based loyalty programs to an extent also depend on the overall sentiment towards cryptocurrencies – their value and ease of transactions.

Lastly, scalability is also an extremely critical point for the smooth running of such loyalty programs. With numerous retail transactions happening every second, it is yet to be seen if blockchain can cater to these huge numbers without a slag time.

Blockchain in digital advertising

Another space where blockchain technology is likely to have significant potential is digital advertising, which is used by numerous retailers as a medium to reach their prospective customers. However, the process of buying online advertising is susceptible to fraud, especially with the increasing use of automated real-time bidding through ad-exchanges (programmatic advertising).

Under real-time programmatic advertising, publishers (themselves or through ad vendors) showcase their inventory along with details about the kind of visitors that their site targets. The advertisers then bid for these ad impressions and the highest bidder gets to display their ad on the site.

The entire process and ad marketplace lacks a sufficient level of transparency. Sometimes vendors misrepresent remnant inventory for a publisher as premium inventory, thereby charging higher fees from advertisers. In other cases, fraudulent sellers enter the exchange, claiming to represent publishers and having access to their inventory, in turn selling fake inventory to advertisers.

Blockchain has the potential to make the online ad marketplace more robust and legitimate by providing transparency, which is currently missing. Since blockchain is a peer-to-peer online ledger where all transactions between the participating parties are recorded (and cannot be deleted or changed), the advertisers can see for themselves where the inventory that they are bidding for has originated and who has access/authority to sell it.

Some examples of implementations are already found in the market. In June 2017, MetaX, a blockchain technology company, along with DMA (The Data and Marketing Association) launched adChain, an open protocol built on the public ethereum. adChain is an open access ledger that tracks and reports the origin, sale, resale, and publishing of an online ad.

Explore our other Perspectives on blockchain

In December 2017, MetaX also launched a blockchain-based solution ‘Ads.txt Plus’ to improve transparency in the digital advertising space. Ads.txt Plus is based on a technology by IAB Tech Lab, called Ads.txt, which helps prevent fraud in the industry by allowing publishers to broadcast a list of authorized sellers of their ad inventory. By bringing this technology to ethereum blockchain, MetaX aims to further improve efficiency and transparency for its users.

If blockchain is adopted successfully in the digital advertising space, the advertisers can see exactly where their ad dollars are being spent, which players made commission, and how much of the total amount paid by them for the ad reached the site publisher.

Further, with the help of blockchain, buyers and sellers (advertisers and publishers) can enter into smart contracts for the sale and purchase of digital ads without the need for intermediaries, eliminating them from the ad bidding process.

Alternatively, buyers and sellers can choose to add other verifying parties/service providers to the smart contracts, such as measurement provider, ratings provider, payment provider, and arbitrator. In 2017, Kochava Labs (the R&D subsidiary of Kochava Inc.) launched XCHNG, an open and unified blockchain-based framework for the digital advertising ecosystem. Through the use of smart contacts, XCHNG aims at reducing the number of middlemen in the digital advertising ecosystem by facilitating transactions between the buyer and the seller and measurement providers.

While blockchain-based solutions fit perfectly in the digital advertising space on paper, the practicality and adaptability are yet to be seen.

One of the key issues challenging the adoption of blockchain in the digital ad space is scalability. The process of chaining and verifying on a blockchain takes much longer, especially, when compared with the current speed of real-time bidding transactions. It is yet to be seen if blockchain technology can evolve to offer faster processing speed, which is critical for industry-wide adoption.

While blockchain-based solutions fit perfectly in the digital advertising space on paper, the practicality and adaptability are yet to be seen. One of the key issues challenging the adoption of blockchain in the digital ad space is scalability.

While few blockchain solutions, such as XCHNG (which claims it can handle 180,000 transactions per second per smart contract composed of multiple insertion orders), refute this challenge, the other challenge in this area is that of intent. Since blockchain is expected to make transactions more transparent and also reduce the number of intermediaries, industry players may not fully embrace the technology and despite its inherent benefits, blockchain may take time to gain ground in the digital advertising industry.

EOS Perspective

In an era where businesses are becoming more customer centric, blockchain helps bring the customer and retailer together on the same platform and promises a future with more transparency. It is clear that blockchain technology has the ability to transform the retail sector just as it is likely to transform several other industries (such as healthcare, car rental and leasing, or aviation).

However, despite holding immense potential and promise, most applications in this space are still to move beyond just being proof-of-concepts. Several issues, such as high investment requirements, scalability, and to an extent, willingness to change, remain to be addressed before there is an industry-wide acceptance for these solutions.

That being said, executives are definitely keeping an eye open for the latest developments in this space and several of them are open to testing and investing in blockchain-based solutions, hoping for them to be the key differentiator/value-proposition that attract the customers towards them. While most investments currently are being seen in the supply chain space (since its benefits seem most achievable and tangible), solutions in the space of loyalty programs and digital advertising may take a little more time to gain traction.

It is safe to say that retailers cannot afford to ignore the benefits of blockchain technology anymore. Many retailers lack specific understanding of this concept and its potential across different areas of their operations. This could cost them dearly in terms of customers. Technological innovations are happening at light-speed in today’s day and age and while blockchain technology currently may lack commercial acceptability and scalability, it is expected to seep into the operations of the real sector in a significant way in the coming future.

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

Blockchain Technology – Next Frontier in Healthcare?

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Blockchain, an innovation underlying the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, is a distributed ledger technology enabling transparent and secure data sharing in real time. The buzz around blockchain technology has spread far beyond finance sector, the technology’s original application area. In fact, think tanks globally are exploring and testing the potential use of blockchain technology to ease current pain points in healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.

Blockchain Technology – Next Frontier in Healthcare? by EOS Intelligence

EOS Perspective

Blockchain-managed information exchange ensures data security, transparency, integrity, and reliability. These attributes have the potential to address several healthcare industry challenges associated with interoperability, data security and privacy, insurance claims processing, clinical trials credibility, and drugs counterfeiting, among others. As a result, blockchain technology is quickly gaining ground among industry stakeholders.

An IBM study (released in 2016) based on survey of 200 healthcare executives – both providers and payers in 16 countries – indicated that 72% of the respondents were planning to deploy blockchain technology-based solutions by 2020. The survey emphasized that the industry pioneers have great confidence in application of blockchain technology with about 16% of the respondents planning to have commercial blockchain solution operational in 2017. Another survey commissioned by Deloitte in 2016 involving 308 executives at the US companies (from various industry segments) with US$500 million or more in annual revenue indicated that 35% of the respondents from healthcare and life sciences industry plan to deploy blockchain solutions in 2017. These surveys suggest that healthcare industry have set high expectations from and is ready to embrace blockchain technology.

 

Blockchain Technology – Next Frontier in Healthcare? by EOS Intelligence

Though blockchain promises to offer several unique solutions, industry players need to be cautious about some obstacles associated with adoption of this technology.

Blockchain technology is a relatively new concept for healthcare domain. There are high risks of dealing with immature and untested technology. A report released by Tierion (a US-based blockchain start-up) in 2016 indicated that healthcare data is prime target of cybercriminals as patient health records sell at US$20 compared with US$1 per credit card number.

Moreover, healthcare organizations need to comply with stringent rules and regulations pertaining to patient data privacy and security to avoid steep penalties. Even though the blockchain technology is expected to provide better security against data breach, the adopters need to be cautious until the capabilities of blockchain technology are proven in real-time environment.

Even though the blockchain technology is expected to provide better security against data breach, the adopters need to be cautious until the capabilities of blockchain technology are proven in real-time environment.

Since blockchain technology is still in the stage of development, the costs and risks associated with its implementation in practicality are largely unknown. Moreover, in absence of real-world business cases, it is difficult to forecast the operating costs as well as potential technology post-implementation roadblocks. This might create some hesitation among the industry players to adopt this new technology as there is little clarity on return on investments.

Full digitization of healthcare data is imperative for successful deployment of blockchain technology. However, it is observed that even some of the developed nations have not been able to achieve 100% digitization till date. For instance, 2015 Commonwealth Fund’s International Survey of Primary Care Physicians indicated that about 84% of physicians in the USA use some form of electronic health record system, while in other countries, such as Germany, France, Canada, and Switzerland, these figures are even lower – 84%, 75%, 73%, and 54%, respectively. These shares can surely be expected to be incomparably lower in less developed and developing countries.

Explore our other Perspectives on blockchain

Furthermore, the implementation of blockchain solutions would require significant changes to, or complete transformation of, existing systems. In order to integrate blockchain software in legacy systems, all forms of data would need to be standardized to ensure compatibility. Considering large volumes of healthcare data, which is now being produced in the range of petabytes, the transition would be a major challenge.

Implementation of blockchain solutions would require significant changes to, or complete transformation of, existing systems. In order to integrate blockchain software in legacy systems, all forms of data would need to be standardized to ensure compatibility

In view of these risks and challenges, we believe that the time is not ripe for the healthcare industry to readily adopt blockchain solutions at a large scale. Rather than rushing to adopt blockchain solutions, the technology should be thoroughly tested before deployment. There is no doubt that the application of blockchain technology has the potential to impact healthcare industry in several positive ways, however, in absence of real-world business cases, it seems too early to estimate the scale of impact and risk.

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