Throughout this past year, blockchain has effectively outgrown its reputation of a trendy startup specialization, and is now considered a staple of the modern business world. Major business players are no longer scared to implement the technology into their development strategies, and the digital ledger has found a home in everything from mobile payments and insurance, to endangered species control and waste management. Now, blockchain’s on its way to take over yet another world: the capital market.
Earlier this week, The Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs has announced their agreement with the Warsaw Stock Exchange (Giełda Papierów Wartościowych – GPW) regarding the introduction of blockchain technology to the public sphere as a whole. According to the press release, incorporating the decentralized ledger into the capital market could be treated as the first step towards its future implementations into the world of public administration. The goal? Improving the efficiency and productivity of not just the administration, but the Polish economy as a whole.
“Currently, merely 5 percent of the most significant stock exchanges in the world use blockchain while 70 percent of them [have declared] working on implementing the technology. – said Marek Dietl, President of GPW Management Board. “By focusing on its implementation, we may get a chance to gain a spot in the global avant-garde.” In the practical sense, Dietl expects blockchain to become an important element of the bond and loan market, e-voting, online transaction settlement, or post trade systems.
So, what’s next? The Ministry of Digital Affairs and the GPW prioritize the development of security standards for trade and public administration, as well as the development of a testing environment used to evaluate new blockchain-oriented solutions. Finally, the institutions expect the need to establish a set of requirements for the proposed solutions in the context of document tokenization, supporting the security and efficiency of business transactions and administrative procedures.
As for the broader context, the collaboration of the two institutions may turn out to be a stepping stone, and eventually set the standard for the future implementations of the leading technological trends into the public space. Here’s to embracing innovation with open arms!
