article · IEEE Access
Blockchain technology has gained widespread recognition primarily through cryptocurrency systems such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, yet barriers persist regarding its adoption for payment services. Beyond digital currencies, blockchain offers distinct capabilities that can support wider financial and banking systems. By utilising security mechanisms such as consensus protocols, digital signatures, and transparency, blockchain and smart contracts can establish trust, improve data governance, and drive automation across financial operations. Mapping these technical characteristics to specific banking sectors illustrates how individual subcomponents of trust and data management can be met. Furthermore, aligning these solutions with established regulatory definitions helps clarify where decentralised systems can be appropriately deployed, while highlighting ongoing research challenges and future technical requirements for financial services.
Financial services require dependable security, clear data management, and automated processes to operate efficiently. Moving the conversation away from cryptocurrencies allows institutions to examine how the fundamental architecture of blockchain can solve traditional administrative bottlenecks, enforce accountability through transparent digital signatures, and meet strict regulatory standards without relying purely on speculative digital assets.
As a broad survey and feature-mapping study, this work sits at an early conceptual stage rather than offering a market-ready tool. It primarily informs software architects and fintech developers by mapping how smart contracts and distributed ledgers might automate banking processes and manage governance. Near-term commercial deployment remains contingent on solving outlined open research problems and satisfying regulatory requirements across different jurisdictions.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
Blockchain has been a vibrant technology in the past decade, with a wide variety of applications across different industrial sectors. The concept of blockchain has been widely recognized as an enabler for cryptocurrency-based decentralized payments, with two major decentralized payment systems such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, the global acceptance of blockchain as a cryptocurrency sums up significant challenges that hinder the fast adaptation of cryptocurrency as a payment service enabler. In this survey, we explore the advantages of blockchain and its technical capabilities beyond cryptocurrency. We focus on the technical potential to ensure trust, data governance, and automation of the financial application domain utilizing the fundamental security features of blockchain, including consensus, digital signatures, and transparency. The significant subcomponents of trust, data management, and automation in banking and financial systems are also identified and discussed, including how blockchain and smart contracts can achieve the anticipated features of each subcomponent through their technical capabilities. In addition, we shed light on the position of blockchain-based applications in key application sectors of the banking and financing domain with a mapping of technical features with the application domains. Thereafter, the applicability of blockchain-based applications is evaluated with relevant regulatory definitions. Finally, we discuss open research challenges and potential future works with the blockchain in the domain of financial systems.
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DOI: 10.1109/access.2024.3395918
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