Chrysostomos Filippou

This is an exploration of Blockchain technology that is growing in popularity and it seems to be able to disrupt a plethora of industries. A research is being conducted to examine Blockchain's potential to be adopted by enterprises from different sectors as well as the parameters that could affect its adoption. Mostly known as the technology that underpins Bitcoin, this concept raised a significant interest within various markets. Blockchain offers a new approach to valued information management and sharing and it is introduced as a solution against the inefficiencies that affect the industry. Experts, infrastructure providers and banks can now work on this technology and explore its uses. This is a new technology journey with obstacles that will need to be overcome and it can not be clear yet what will eventually arise. Professionals from around the world express their views on the adoption of Blockchain by organisations and how these plan to support its deployment. Thoughts are shared in terms of the required budget and the parameters that can impact its adoption. There is a great interest in Blockchain technology and its revolutionary potential to modernize the world economy and this is only the beginning.

The innovation of Blockchain technology is credited to a person or a group of people under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Although this name is connected to the creation of Blockchain, an undeniably ingenious invention, not much is known about its real identity. Blockchain became popular as the heart of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies; however, it seems to be more than this, especially when it comes to the potential it has to transform and to modernize the global economy. From a technical perspective, Blockchain technology is also known as a distributed database that differs from the relational databases that currently dominate the market. A distributed database improves security, transparency and efficiency, in contrast to the current relational database management model where the support of transactions and computations relies on databases that are used as central repositories. Transparency, security and efficiency are being improved by the control of a distributed database that does not rest with its owner like it happens with the relational database model. How Blockchain could support KYC/AML efforts Among others, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-money Laundering (AML) are potential Blockchain use cases. Currently, institutions offering financial or professional services are obliged to follow time-consuming and expensive practices for each new customer. The adoption of Blockchain technology can lead to the reduction of the AML/KYC cost because of its cross-institution client verification capability as well as the effectiveness of monitoring and analyzing data, required for AML/KYC checks. Essentially, with Blockchain, the verification of a client or the legality of a transaction could take place only once and the final result will be cryptographically stored in Blockchain. Therefore, organizations such us banks or administration services providers (ASPs) will get rid of the multi-step AML/KYC processes as they could have the option to access a distributed database that will provide them with the final results of those processes. More specifically, all the information that is related to a client will become available to organizations with the appropriate permissions via a distributed database that will be considered as a single source of " truth " .