IBM releases two blockchain research reports: Banks and financial market institutions will apply comprehensive commercial blockchain solutions in their products in 2017 (download the full report)

IBM recently released two blockchain research reports, which pointed out that banking and financial market leaders are focusing on blockchain technology in order to create new business models and predict the disruptive power of this technology.

According to the official release, the first report is titled "引领银行区块链：开拓者设定发展速度" (full report download), which is based on a survey of 200 banks worldwide; the second report is titled "区块链重写金融市场：开拓者占据领导地位" (full report download), which is based on 200 global financial market institutions. According to the research, 15% of banks and 14% of financial market institutions intend to apply comprehensive commercial blockchain solutions in 2017. 65% of banks expect to use blockchain solutions in their products in the next three years.

Likhit Wagle, global industry general manager for IBM Global Banking and Financial Markets, said:

“Being an early adopter of blockchain technology has many advantages. First, the first movers are setting business standards and creating new models that future blockchain adopters will use. We also find that these early blockchain adopters are better able to anticipate the disruption that blockchain will bring and fend off new competitors along the way.”

The banking report, conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value, shows that more than 70% of the pioneers or early adopters surveyed are prioritizing the use of distributed ledgers to break down current barriers to creating new business models. And among the financial market institutions reporting, 70% are focusing on distributed ledgers in a variety of areas, including wholesale payments, clearing and settlement, equity and debt insurance, and reference data.

These pioneers expect blockchain to have an impact on a variety of business areas, including 83% of financial market institutions that believe it will have an impact on the reference data field, 80% that it will have an impact on retail payments and 79% that it will have an impact on the consumer lending industry. 80% of the banks participating in the survey confirmed that blockchain will have the greatest impact in the trade finance, corporate lending and reference data fields.

IBM is advancing the development of blockchain technology to eliminate the complexity of blockchain and make it easier for people to use and more open. Through IBM's open source contribution to Hyperledger Fabric and the blockchain service on IBM Bluemix, developers have the opportunity to develop blockchain applications and test the security, availability and performance of permissioned blockchain networks.