Exploring the Impact of Blockchain on Financial Services and Beyond

Blockchain technology is revolutionizing various industries by offering decentralized and secure solutions. In the financial sector, it enhances transparency and reduces fraud through applications such as anti-money laundering procedures and blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. The supply chain industry benefits from improved tracking and efficiency, exemplified by IBM's Food Trust and collaborations like Walmart’s initiative to combat food poisoning. Additionally, digital marketing for independent hotels is adapting to remain competitive using blockchain for secure transactions. Furthermore, the adoption of blockchain in KYC processes helps financial institutions verify customer identities more effectively while reducing operational costs. This summary encapsulates how blockchain serves as a transformative tool across different domains.

Running head: SKILLS FOR INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
SKILLS FOR INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Executive summary:
The main purpose of the report is to analyze and review various problems the organization is
facing to make the online business more secured and diverged. The report will help to address
various problems the organization has faced during the last few years in implementing the online
business model. One of the major problems that has always been with the organization is the lack
of effective database security . Furthermore the platform used for online transaction is not up to
the market as compared to the recent market standard which has significantly affected the growth
of the online business since the company first adopted it. Based on the findings, the report will
suggest some strategies to improve those problems so that the organization can expand its
presence in other countries and expand the existing ecommerce business within Australia as well.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Discussion:.......................................................................................................................................3
1.Block chain technology in various sectors...............................................................................3
1.1Blockchain technology in banking sector:..........................................................................4
1.2 Block chain technology in financial industry:...............................................................7
1.3 Blockchain technology in supermarket industries:.......................................................8
1.4 Use of blockchain in hospitality:.................................................................................10
2.Potential issues with blockchain technology:.........................................................................10
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................11
Recommendations:........................................................................................................................11

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Introduction:
The organization started its journey as a community bank in rural New South Wales
(NSW) and the primary customers were from the retail sector. Now it has clients from retail and
corporate sectors as well. Today it has various retail branches within NSW and online business
operations. The Head Office of the organization is based in Sydney. The organization is now
planning to explore the business to other States of Australia and to the Oceania region, as well as
expand its e-commerce activities in the coming five years.
Feedbacks and reports have been collected from various client organizations to
understand the problems from the root. After reviewing all the reports it is find out that the major
issue that the organization needs to consider is that it should improve the database security and
the capacity as well to serve more clients effectively and securely. The purpose of the report is to
conduct a detailed research on the blockchain technology and its implications in finance and
banking industries. Two other sectors including hospitality and supermarket industries have also
been considered to review the performance of the technology and based on the research three
blockchained based applications will be suggested considering the problems the organization is
facing currently. The report also explores several risks associated with the technology to help the
organization to understand ethical, social and legal issues associated with the technology.
Discussion:
The report will discuss about the following topics:
1.Block chain technology in various sectors
1.1 Banking sector

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1.2 Finance industry
1.3 Supermarket industry
1.4 Hospitality sector
2. Potential risks associated with blockchain technology
1.1Blockchain technology in banking sector:
1.1.1 Benefits of the technology:
Blockchain can be considered as a relatively new technology that enebales financial
transactions to be executed more securely and transparently. Blockchain is a web-based end–to-
end transaction services. All the users in the network have access to the the copies that contains
financial transactions. This implies that there is no need of indipendent verifications by the third
parties for the transactions to take place (Barber et al . , 2014).
The bitcoin blockchain can be considered as one of the initial sectors where the
technology has found the most successful implementations (Eyal et al . , 2016). Despite the fact
that the technology was first intoroduced to meet the craze of bitcoin , the applications can be
introduced for finanncial activities in the real world as well as specified in the article.
The Global Economic Forum has mentioned the Blockchain as a phenomenal technology
developed in recent years. The technology has seen a continious growth in investment, specially
from banking sectors Blockchain technology has the potential to make financial transactions less
costly thus contributing to greater profit (Pilkington , 2015). Moreover, the recuirement for a
central authority is also omitted as portion of the bolockchain is rerserved in nodes and The

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process does not use central database to store records which makes it difficult for individuals to
misuse the confidential data as suggested by the author.
According to the study done by IBM, global financial organizations are facing various
issues with the traditional transaction systems currently in practice (Miller , 2017) . The article
also reveals that the middle parties involved in these transactions demands a hefty amount, and
users involved in the process does not get access to the same information. Due to this, financial
transactions are getting more complex, and costly as well. The study also suggest that adoption
of blockchain technology will not only increase the efficiency of the transactions, but will make
it more secure and transparent
1.1.2 Recent development :
Some tech companies and startups are working to deliver blockchain based products
(Lewenberg , Sompolinsky & Zohar). According to the article, Paul Taylor, a former engineer at
Google is developing a block chain based operating system for banking sector called Vault Os.
Microsoft has partnered with Bank of America to develop a blockchain powered framework that
can be brought to market to offer to organizations for purchase and project Bletchely is another
blockchain based product by Microsoft based on Azure , a cloud platform by Microsoft
(Azure.microsoft.com, 2018). IBM recently launched a cloud based blockchain platform to
make secured transactions online and recently , Citibank has funded a blockchain startup called
Cobalt to support their development (Vigna & Casey , 2016 ) .
1.1.3 Application of the technology in the sector:
In October 2017, a new milestone was achieved in the traditional banking industry when 88
Bales of cotton were purchsed for $35,000 in a cross border blockchain based trade (Portes &

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Rey , 2015). The report specifies that The R3 association is a firm devoted to popularize the
adoption of blockchain all over the world by making it more first , secure and accurate. R3 is
constantly searching for ways to implement smart contracts, that can help transactions to be
performed automatically provided that the certain predetermined conditions are met successful
by the parties involved sucessfully.
Singapore developed a pilot project by using blockchain technology for interbank
transactions earlier 2017 (Manelli & Smith , 2017). According to the article, the Singapore
Central Bank, eight local and foreign banks, as well as the stock exchange took participation in
the pilot project. Singapore is looking to attract investment in the fintech sector, and the
blockchain pilot was a part of that effort. Cross border foreign currency transactions were also
used to review the the pilot project. The R3 association helped Singapore to conduct the pilot
test. Governments and Industries all over the world are preparing to take the advantage of the
technology as it promises to be a game changer for the digital currency in the coming years as
specified in the article..
Clearing and settlement is one of the primary areas where blockchain can be used effectively
(Ft.com, 2018). According to this report the websites and related securities that is used to keep
track of records related to all kind of loans involves billon dollar of investment by the banks.
According to a report published by Accenture , blockchain can help banks to reduce the cost up
to 10 billion dollar by making clearing and settlement services more improved and efficient and
there is a huge potential of the technology to reconstruct the sector on a serious note
(Accenture.com, 2018). The report also mention that one of the best known examples of the
reconstruction is the Australian security exchanges which targets to execute a major portions of

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the clearing and settlement services by using blockchain system and project is currently
supervised by Digital Asset Holdings .
1.2 Block chain technology in financial industry:
1.2.1 Benefits of the technology:
Blockchain technology is getting a lot of attentions in the financial sector in the recent
years as it comes with the potential to reduce fraud in the financial sector (Tapscott & Tapscott ,
2017). The article mentions that around 45% of the financial institutions like stock exchanges as
well as money transfer services suffer from economic crime each year. Most of the financial
services deals with centralized database which is prone to cyber attacks and once the attackers
get access to the data base they can penetrate even deeper into the system to steal confidential
and valuable data worth cores as specified by the authors.
The article also describe that blockchain basically consist of several blocks where each
transaction is identified with a timestamp and each block is linked with the previous block .Due
to this it will be much more convenient to find any abnormal activities within the transaction.
1.2.2 Application of the technology in the sector:
Know your customer(KYC):
Financial organizations spend almost 60 to 500 million dollar just to maintain their KYC
services. It help the organizations to verify the identity of the customer to make ensure that in
future they does not have to faces issues like money laundering as well as terrorism activities. the
use of blockchain will enable to verify the customer independently when one organization need

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to access the information that has already been used by another organization and the process
need not to be started over again. Due to this the administrative cost will significantly reduce
(Gill & Taylor , 2016).
Smart contacts:
Due to the ability of the blockchains to store any form of digital information, it can be used
to store computer code as well. The code can be executed only when two or more participants
enter their keys successfully and correctly. This feature can help to make smart contracts which
will enable to perform financial transactions automatically without compromising the security of
the system. Transactions will be only possible once the criteria is followed properly like a
customer will only receive invoice after the delivery is made successfully (Buterin , 2014).
1.3 Blockchain technology in supermarket industries:
1.3.1 Benefits of the technology:
The blockchain technology has recently began to gain a lot of popularity in the grocery
retail which happens to be one of the major consumer market globally. Major companies and
producers are showing interest to invest in the technology as it comes with lot of benefits. It has
the potential to the make supply chain transparent and improve methods to trace products.
Additionally it can make auditing decentralized and reduce cost across industries ( Swan , 2015).
1.3.2 Application of the technology:
Payment and transaction:

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In order to improve the shopping experience of the customers retail chains have adopted
various payment methods : starting from cards to digital payment wallets companies has tried to
include all. The major problem the companies were facing to incorporate the digital payments
method into their system was that they had to partner with various third parties to make digital
payments possible. Due to this companies has to invest a lot of amount to get the third party
services which does not allow it to have independent access over the system. With the help of
the blockchain technology retail companies can develop a digital payment ecosystem with full
access over the system.
Logistic and supply chain:
Logistic and supply chain is the next potential area where blockchain has promising
applications. From homestead to fork, blockchain innovation gives trustworthiness, credibility
and security for the information as things travel through the inventory network. These records
are time-stamped and carefully designed. Moreover, they are autonomously evident by all
individuals and gatherings enabled access to the information (Kuptiyanovsky et al . , 2017).
According to the article ,a blockchain-based coordinations and inventory network
administration framework offers control over how, where and when the item is created,
transported, put away, conveyed and exhibited to the end consumer. Blockchain-based approach
empowers trust to be fabricated rapidly and debate to be settled in a straightforward way.
Food safety:
Huge organizations like Wallmart is putting weight on providers to utilize blockchain will
move a colossal swathe of the nourishment world into one sorted out framework. That is no little
accomplishment when ranchers, processors, wholesalers, and retailers are at present utilize

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diverse sorts of documentation to track their items—some of them still on paper (del Castillo ,
2017).
The article specifies that under the new framework, if a customer falls sick from E. coli
followed to a bunch of lettuce, a sustenance security specialist could possibly check a
standardized identification on the bundling to rapidly take in where it originated from and where
other lettuce from a similar group went. Retailers will have the capacity to rapidly expel sullied
items from racks, along these lines ceasing the spread of sicknesses.
1.4 Use of blockchain in hospitality:
Blockchain can give significant advantages to the accommodation chain. For a huge chain
with a huge number of providers and many establishments, it gives top to bottom perceivability
of the nature of acquisition of the store network (Lanz & Carmichael , 2015). According to the
article, establishments can utilize this information to advance the production network, bringing
about increment of primary concern for ventures and the establishments. As each exchange's
information is changeless and secure, it spares important time in debate determination, exorbitant
printed material, and process time. Along these lines, blockchain innovation helps make the
backend forms effective, and enhance mark esteem and client encounter.
2.Potential issues with blockchain technology:
Being a youthful, as yet advancing innovation, there are certain parts of the innovation
that may require further advancement or change to achieve its expected potential. A similar

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instrument that gives trust to an open blockchain additionally acquaints dormancy with the
network (Anon, 2018). According to the report, Exchange confirmation requires agreement:
agreement requires some measure of calculation, and calculation requires significant investment.
Accordingly, exchange handling isn't immediate and can frequently take a few minutes. Certain
convention outlines have diminished the preparing time to not as much as a moment, however
constant handling is still restricted with current models. Accord and calculation likewise
constrain transaction throughput. Exchanges on an open blockchain require to come to accord
with countless members, which requires time. Permissioned blockchains or existing exchange
stages, in any case, do not have similar impediments considering their unique trust models as
mentioned in the given report.
Conclusion:
The purpose of the report was to find the problems that the organization was facing to
execute the online the business model and additionally find solutions to address those issues.
Based on the report it was find out that the main problem with the organization has been lack of
security of database and additionally the payment platform was also not secured and flexible
which are the most important factors for a online business to be successful. In accordance with
the problem it can be concluded that the company should adopt blockchain technology as it has
the potential to address those problems effectively. Even though the technology has a lot of
drawbacks provided the technology is fairly new in the market, but the potential growth possible
with the invention can not be overlooked. The current application of the technology in various
sector like banking, finance , supermarket and hospitality industries and the way it has influenced
or promise to bring changes in those sector confirms the same.

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Recommendations:
For the company to expand the ecommerce business it should make the following
considerations like secure payment system, database capacity and integrity, improved logistic
systems and cost effectiveness. Based on the report some strategic recommendations is provided.
To improve the database system in terms of security and capacity it is recommended that
the organizations should use blockchain based platform. The organization should consider using
IBM cloud based platform as it provides the much needed security for protected database
To make the delivery of products faster and transparent block chain based smart contract
technology is recommended .
To make transaction secure and effective company should focus on developing own
digital payment ecosystem which will again reduce the cost of third party collaboration.
Blockchain is a definite solution in that case.
To reduce the cost to verify consumer identity digitally blockchain based KYC system is
recommended to adopt in practice.

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