Blockchain technology is expected to revolutionalize how our industries and enterprises operate. Experts estimate that it will business process flows and enable organizations to build products and services that are more secure, transparent, fraud-resistant, and cost-efficient. Banking and financial enterprises and start-ups have been the first to experiment with and adopt this disruptive technology. Reports and surveys suggest that, within the next decade, these organizations will go through rapid stages of innovation to establish blockchain as the Backbone for their day-to-day operations and the services they offer to their customers. In this book, we'll be looking at some prominent applications of this technology for the banking and finance industry through projects. Each project is implemented using a popular distributed ledger platform.
By the end of the book, you will have a better understanding of how to leverage blockchain technology to build applications for financial use cases. You will also have sufficient knowledge of building blockchain solutions using the Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, and Stellar distributed ledger platforms.
In this chapter, we'll be looking at the current state of financial systems and how blockchain can make a difference. We'll also try to understand how to approach implementing such a solution and some of the popular blockchain platforms we can consider for developing a financial application. The topics covered are as follows:
- Present-day banking and finance systems
- Understanding the blockchain technology
- Blockchain for financial services
- How to approach implementing a blockchain solution
- The popular distributed ledger platforms for financial applications