Accenture has released a new report, co-prepared with benchmarking firm McLagan – a business unit of Aon plc, which explores how blockchain or distributed ledger technology could lead to cost savings and other benefits.

In this study, Accenture mapped McLagan’s aggregated operational cost data from eight of the world’s largest investment banks (based on revenues) against its proprietary Accenture High Performance Investment Bank model. This offered an insight into where blockchain is likely to have the most impact across the entire spectrum of front-to-back processes and operating metrics of an investment bank.

According to the results, blockchain-based database system could cut central financial reporting expenses by 70%, while compliance costs could be reduced to somewhere between 30% and 50%. It could also cut costs related to KYC and client onboarding by 50% and general business operations by 50% as well.

In addition, Accenture said that annual savings could be between $8 billion and $12 billion.

“To be clear, we are not suggesting that blockchain is a panacea to remedy all the ills of investment banking. For many use cases, conventional database structures or processes will achieve a similar outcome without the costs and challenges of a blockchain solution”, it said. “However, there is compelling evidence that blockchain could radically reduce, if not entirely eliminate, many existing clearing and settlement processes.”