We are on the verge of unprecedented opportunities for much safer, transparent and faster kind of services.

FinTech (Finance & Technology) startups, often subsidiaries from banks and financial institutions, are preparing blockchain based services for a number of years now. European PSD2 legislation accelerates these initiatives. Also the technological players in the market are developing their services. KPN (telecom industry in The Netherlands) predicts a huge future for closed blockchains. Microsoft Azure has expanded their portfolio with BAAS, Blockchain As A Service. And Amazon is preparing a Managed Blockchain Service in their AWS suite.

What is blockchain?

An increasing number of companies, industries and public organizations are using blockchains to facilitate and verify transactions almost instantly. Thereby streamlining business processes, saving money and reducing the risk of fraud. In essence, a blockchain is a data structure for creating a ledger for digital transactions that does not belong to one provider, but is shared in a distributed network of computers, a distributed ledger.

The result is a more open, transparent and publicly verifiable system. It will lead to a fundamental change in the way we think about the exchange of value and assets, the enforcement of contracts and the sharing of data between different industries. The number of applications for which blockchains are used is almost infinite. Ranging from loans, bonds and payments to more efficient supply chains and even identity management and verification.