Bitcoin could be a threat to parts of the financial sector - Santander report

The economies of many South American countries are burdened by high inflation. Under these conditions, bitcoin is increasingly used as a currency to protect [...] https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1085437947660215829/

The economies of many South American countries are burdened by high inflation. Under these conditions, Bitcoin is increasingly being used as a currency to protect savings, displacing the traditional US dollar. This is not escaping the attention of the banks there.     The economies of many South American countries are burdened by high inflation. Under these conditions Bitcoin is increasingly being used as a currency to protect savings, displacing the traditional US dollar. This is not escaping the attention of the local banks.   The Brazilian branch of Santander Bank held a meeting with Mercado Bitcoin, the largest bitcoin exchange in South America. The result of that meeting is a short report describing the effects that the wider spread of bitcoin could have on key players in Brazilian retail finance. Cielo, a local payment card company (which receives transactions from store terminals, authorizes and settles them), was identified as the most at risk. The pressure to accept Bitcoin here will come from retailers, more than from shoppers. While card transactions are fast and free from the store customer's point of view, the merchant receives funds with a month's delay and pays an operator's commission. The use of Bitcoin also does not require any contracts to be signed - this includes both a card agreement signed by the customer and a contract between the merchant and the payment card operator. Another company at risk, according to the authors of the report, is Valid - a company that, among other things, physically produces debit and credit cards (carriers). Here, however, the risk was described as low, because these are not the only products of the company, which deals with IT techniques related to authentication, encryption and wireless communication.   Looking at it globally, there are probably hundreds if not thousands of financial companies around the world threatened by cryptocurrencies, with a "dinosaur" such as Western Union at the forefront.   Interestingly, the report recognizes that banks, card issuers (such as Visa, and MasterCard), and commodity and currency exchanges are more likely to gain from the proliferation of Bitcoin. This is largely due to the hope of using blockchain technology to lower the cost of settlements between financial institutions. This is, after all, where the dilemma arises - bankers would most prefer to maintain their own blockchains, fully controlled by them. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that centralized chains requiring trust in the chain operator do not offer spectacular advantages over traditional registries. Instead, using the Bitcoin chain (or side chains) directly supports Bitcoin itself as a currency, which financiers do not like.     Tags bank bitcoin btc report Santander