The financial market gates have a very ambiguous attitude towards blockchain and cryptocurrency. But harshly criticizing new technologies, they cannot miss the opportunity to fill their pockets with their help. Let's see how this happens.
Western Union displeased with blockchain. But it is not exactly
Blockchain allows you to conduct cheap and instant transactions anywhere. So in October, 2018 in the Ethereum network transferred cryptocurrency worth more than $ 180 million for 6 cents.
At this point, Western Union’s leader in international remittances would think about how to make your transfers at least a little cheaper. For example, now sending 100 rubles from Russia to Ukraine via Western Union will cost ... 100 rubles!
And if you need to translate $ 1 000 000? Then you have to make hundreds of payments (the limit on shipping from Russia is $ 5 000 per day), and this can take years. In addition, for such transfers will have to pay a very round sum.
And it seems that Western Union thought. At the beginning of 2018, the company confirmed that it was testing Ripple's capabilities for its international remittances. But the director of Western Union Hikmet Ersek was not impressed with the results of this testing.
“We are often criticized for the fact that Western Union is inefficient from an economic point of view. However, during the testing of the Ripple network, we also did not see efficiency. We have not seen a real cost reduction. Of course, we intend to continue testing the system in order to have a complete picture, ”Ersek said.
Raj Aggarwal, the financial director of Western Union, also said that so far the company had not found anything in the blockchain that could be called a “big find”. Testing lasted 6 months and nothing ended.
In fact: what kind of savings are we talking about if the cost of transactions in the Ripple network is only a few cents, and the Western Union commission is from 1 dollars to 4% of the transfer amount? Send to a neighboring country 100 rubles for 100 rubles - sincerely yours, Western Union.
Here's how this situation was commented on by Ripple: “If they moved large amounts of funds, they would probably have the desired effect. But after all the 10 transactions, there’s nothing to be surprised that no obvious savings can be seen. The company makes millions of transactions per month, and I am not surprised that 10 transfers with our solutions did not show amazing results. ”
It is not clear that it was WU that were tested for several months, but they did issue a patent for the use of blockchain technologies. The system patented by them guarantees translation confirmation through biometric verification.
There are two unexpected moments in the Western Union patent:
First, it says that this transfer system is suitable for cryptocurrency systems such as Bitcoin, Peercoin and Litecoin. At the same time, Western Union declares that it will not work with cryptocurrencies.
Secondly, an application for this patent was filed in the 2016 year, that is, WU did not have an interest in the blockchain yesterday. And the design of the patent just coincides in time with the end of testing technology Ripple.
Western Union has a rich past. The company was founded in the distant 1851 year, and after 25 years, Alexander Bell wanted to sell WU Director William Orton a patent for a phone for 100 000 dollars. In response, Orton called the phone a “toy” and wrote the following note: “At first glance, the idea is really idiotic. Besides, who wants to use this clumsy and inappropriate device, if you can send a courier to the telegraph service and send a clear written message to any major city in the United States? ”
To paraphrase:
“The idea to use the blockchain is really idiotic. Who wants to transfer money to any point of the world using blockchain technologies almost free of charge and instantly, when you can go to a Western Union office and send a payment, having overpaid just twice? ”
Really, who?
Payment giants Visa and MasterCard stamp blockchain patents
The leaders of payment giants Visa and Mastercard are skeptical of the blockchain. MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga said this a year ago:
“All that you like, there are all kinds of bitcoins - it's rubbish, remember. Transparency? You can all, online, see how and how many dollars, euros and other paper tugriks are printed. Everything is under control, everything is transparent. ”
It looks like a joke, although it is said seriously.
Nevertheless, in recent years, the company has developed "its own vision of bitcoin technology." Since October 2017, Mastercard's patented blockchain solution has been available to customers as an alternative method of payment for goods and services.
In recent months alone, Mastercard patented the system for making anonymous transactions in blockchain networks, applied to the US Patent Office for using distributed registry technology to record consumer payments, and won a patent for a system that allows you to run various types of blockchains. In general, Mastercard has blockchain patents.
Visa director Alfred Kelly is more cautious in his statements. But the meaning of his words comes down to the fact that Visa is doing well without your blockchains:
But what is interesting.
Last fall, Vitaly Buterin expressed the opinion that the blockchain technology may in the near future take part of the market from Visa and other financial institutions or even replace them. According to Buterin, as soon as the security problem of this technology can be solved, the blockchain “will radically change the current picture of the international financial market.”
After that, Alfred Kelly, who was not too talkative about blockchain and cryptocurrency, made the following statement: “The processed 130 million transactions per year (this is about bitcoin transactions in the network - author's note) means absolutely nothing for a company capable of processing 100 billion Payments and Transactions. He also said that Bitcoin is not a payment system, and that no Bitcoin can become a killer of Visa. This is probably a belated response to Buterin’s statement.
Visa officials claim that their payment system processes 24 000 transactions per second. So far, most operating blockchain systems do not reach these indicators. But there is one nuance: Visa cannot confirm its high throughput.
Probably, in reality, the network handles all 1700 transactions. In addition, many blockchain startups are already developing networks with bandwidth from 100 000 transactions per second. Unlike Visa, in the blockchain these numbers can be confirmed. So the superiority of the payment giants Visa and Mastercard may be a big question, and Buterin’s words become prophetic.
Although Visa "is already doing well," since 2016, the company has been testing the blockchain along with several banks. In October, 2018 Visa introduced B2B Connect, a digital blockchain system for international money transfer between companies. It is expected that this platform based on Hyperledger Fabric technology will be launched in the first quarter of 2019.
Obviously, with the blockchain business, VISA can get even better. Only the management of the company prefers not to talk about it out loud.
Gref fell out of love with the blockchain, Sberbank did not
German Gref, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sberbank, is a well-known fan of modern technology. In 2017, his progressive thinking spawned a popular meme:
Then German Gref predicted that the blockchain would make a huge shift in the economy. He said that through 5 –10 years, thanks to the introduction of this technology, significant changes would occur, and he advised school leavers to study the blockchain. German Oskarovich was not even sure that Sberbank will have a place in the world of digital economy:
- They ask me whether Sberbank will remain after this technology is mature. This is a very big question, what kind of business will remain at all, - he said.
But by the spring of 2018, Gref suddenly changed his mind. Now he calls the blockchain an immature and overvalued technology, which significantly loses the technology of artificial intelligence: - We see that the maturity of the blockchain technology is still insufficient to rank it among those technologies that today can change our life.
Here is a turn in just six months. Nothing happened to Gref.
Although Gref changed his mind about the blockchain, Sberbank is not going to change its mind: over the past year, the bank conducted Russia's first payment transaction on the IBM Blockchain platform and opened a blockchain laboratory; Sberbank CIB and MTS also issued bonds in ruble bonds based on the blockchain platform. Sberbank also conducted a trial ICO and issued tokens on the blockchain.
In addition, Sberbank teaches Bloch itself:
According to Gref, the blockchain is not mature enough to change our world for the better. But Sberbank, apparently, is quite ripe in order to carry the blockchain to the world.
When words disagree with business
It has recently become especially fashionable to criticize blockchain and cryptocurrencies: what are Rubini's pearls in the US Senate? But banks, major payment systems and corporations are headed by businessmen who are used to looking for (and finding) their benefit in everything. Their statements about blockchain are reminiscent of an attempt to create a smokescreen: capitalism sharks portray disinterest and even scold technology, but at the same time they are actively introducing blockchain into their business.