In a recent survey, Synechron, a global consulting and technology organization, found that majority of senior executives believe that blockchain technology will be in everyday use in the financial services industry within 10 years.

Conducted in collaboration with TABB Group, the survey involved respondents from over 200 senior-level, global financial services business and IT decision-makers across the U.S., U.K. and Europe. Despite varying levels of action on blockchain initiatives, majority of financial services organizations believe in the long-term, innovative potential of the technology and are exploring the possible course of action factoring in business unit, use case and resources to achieve maximum business value.

The key takeaways from the survey are:

• 89% of senior executives believe blockchain will be in everyday use in the financial services industry by 2026
   
• 94% believe boards have bought into developing blockchain projects
   
• 87% believe they have enough budget to implement blockchain projects
   
• 70% do not believe their organizations currently have enough talent capable of implementing blockchain technology
   
• 67.4% are actively engaging in blockchain technology:
  • 13% are assembling a blockchain team; 16.7% have identified a use case for the technology; 15% have already built a pilot blockchain application, either on their own or with a counterparty; 22.7% are currently participating in a working group on the technology
     
• 25% are waiting for regulatory guidance on blockchain before implementing it
   
• Only 16.7% of respondents cited regulatory guidance as an issue they’re most interested in seeing solved; whereas 29.3% said their most important issue is interoperability, 20.9% said privacy, and 20.5% scalability.

“It is clear that many financial services firms are either seriously considering how to utilize blockchain within their organization or are already putting this technology into practice. However, with any new technology there are challenges to be overcome. Our survey shows that recruiting the right people is one such challenge, regulation is another, and technical considerations related to the technology itself another. Businesses will need to assess carefully how they approach each individually, and this will require knowledge across these areas to make the most strategic decision on how to proceed and to take action”, Faisal Husain, Co-founder and CEO at Synechron, said.