5 Years Ago

Western Union, with 500,000 branches globally and revenues of over $5.5 Billion, is a significant player in the international remittance market - charging 5% to 9.5% to process transactions.

The Global remittance market was valued by the World bank at over $613 Billion in 2018, an increase of  7% since 2017.

This means the very poorest workers i.e. cleaners, nurses, security guards, etc. in more developed countries who are sending money back to loved ones are paying up to $60 Billion in banking and foreign exchange costs p.a.
It is hoped that  Blockchain technology will enable the same money transfers at a much lower cost.

Western Union has just announced a venture with TransferTo, which itself saw tremendous growth of over 900% in 2018, processing over $2 Billion of transactions. TransferTo has been using the Stellar Blockchain (as used by IBM). This venture allows Western Union to start digitising its remittance business,  which ought to allow it to compete with many of the FinTech firms we are seeing being established, using Blockchain technology, offering similar services.

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Blockchain
Financial Services
https://bitnewstoday.com/news/western-union-par...lockchain/
United parcel Services (UPS), a global courier company established in 1907, which had revenues of over $64 Billion in 2017, has been looking at Blockchain technology for a while.

In Q3 2018 it joined The Blockchain in Trucking Alliance as it looked to improve transparency and efficiency among consumers, merchants and other parties that use its services.

UPS had filed for a patent in August 2018, which involved storing information dispatch to destination, creating a shipment plan, including payments, using Blockchain technology.

UPS’s Airline subsidiary, said at the end of December 2018, they were still looking for a “Killer App”, so not looking to implement Blockchain technology in the near future. However, UPS has now announced that it has entered a partnership with Inxeption to create Inxeption Zippy. A Blockchain-based e-commerce platform which helps merchants set up, sell, and ship products online. 

The B2B e-commerce market is set to reach $1.8 trillion by 2023, according to Forrester research. This new platform will offer manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers the ability to create their own branded e-commerce website .

The platform enables the listing, marketing, and selling of products. According to an official press release the Blockchain component of this platform is designed to safeguard sensitive information such as individual pricing and negotiated rates.

A good example where Blockchain will be implemented without consumers realising the technology is being harnessed, yet they will be able to enjoy the benefits of greater efficiency and data security.

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Blockchain
e-commerce
https://www.coindesk.com/ups-targets-business-s...blockchain
In an effort to help homes become both greener and energy producers Ikea are testing solar panels on the roofs of a miniature wooden village, built to 1:50 scale and incorporating Blockchain technology.

The concept is designed to track and improve the traceability of electrical power that a building is able to produce, for ‘microgrid” tokens.

The mock up energy self-sustaining model village is powered by solar panels enabling, households to sell any excess electricity or indeed able to buy some from their neighbours, if required, through a Blockchain.  All of the buildings are hardwired together to create a microgrid for energy sharing and trading in what Ikea claims is a fully scalable model.

According to a report by Mckinsey, “By 2020 the number of smart cities will reach 600 worldwide, and 5 years later almost 60 percent of the world’s GDP will be produced in them. Digital technologies could become the engine of economic progress, and blockchain, without a doubt, could be one of them”.
A number of countries are already exploring similar ideas. China has already set plans in motion to create hundreds of smart cities by 2025, to support its growing population.

Estonia has started integrating Blockchain technology into many of its government services, including its legislative processes, healthcare and ID and energy data management.
Meanwhile, Dubai has created it’s ‘Smart City Initiative’ which aims to transform the city into the world’s first Blockchain powered city by 2020.

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Blockchain
Digital Technology
https://businessblockchainhq.com/energy-blockch...olarville/
Singapore based Incomland, set up in 2016,  have created a company called LC LITE using Blockchain technology to tackle the inefficiencies prevalent in the LC market.


It is claimed that up to 80% of LC documents have discrepancies and the administration of documentation can cost up to twenty percent of the actual cost of shipping goods. LC LITE are looking to use Smart Contracts so that importers and exporters will be able to agree on terms up front and so replace the current LC agreements manual processes. It is hoped that this will simplify and quicken the inefficient processing of documentation while reducing the number of intermediaries, this improves cash flow for importers and exporters while improving security and reducing fraud.

One of the challenges of using Smart Contracts is that many lawyers believe that they are neither Smart nor are they Contracts, all they are in effect a software program and therefore not backed by law.

However, different jurisdictions are reviewing Smart Contracts, this so this stance may change. Luxemburg has recently passed a law to enable the use of Blockchain technology in financial services which is claimed to mean that transactions created digitally using a Blockchain will have the same legal status and protection as those done through traditional means.

This new law in Luxemburg could encourage Blockchain savvy businesses to move to Luxemburg and help it strengthen its position as one of Europe’s largest administrator for the European asset management sector.


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Blockchain
International Market
https://zycrypto.com/blockchain-companies-will-...uxembourg/
Blockchain technology, is increasingly finding applications in the energy sector predominantly in wholesale energy trading.

However, the technology is being used for various other applications with the help of Smart Contracts to offer digital identification, encouraging power suppliers to actively invest in more research and innovation for developing Blockchain solutions.

The energy sector has certain limitations, including high administration and transmission costs mainly due to the centralized functioning of the sector. As Blockchain addresses these issues and decreases the scope for single-point failures while increasing transparency across the supplychain the technology is expected to bring a noteworthy digital transformation for the sector.

With the UK’s power distribution networks looking to potentially have to
spend £24 Billion between 2015 and 2013, any way that can make the UK power suppliers more efficient will be welcome.
The Smart Power project from Imperial College has identified £8Billion worth of savings p.a. using technology like smart meters and variable power supplies which Blockchain technology could significantly help.
In Spain power utility firm Iberdrola has completed a project that uses Blockchain technology to ensure customers can be certain they are using renewable electricity, so reducing their carbon footprint.

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Blockchain
Energy
https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/929...market?w=5
The Blockchain Education Network (BEN) now has over three thousand students, in sixty countries - established to slake the thirst for more information about Blockchain.

Students, and for that matter governments, are increasingly looking beyond the hype of ICOs of using Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies to make money, and are looking at how the technology can impact society in a positive manner.

BEN is a non-profit organisation for students, whose aim is to help build a world that is more open by encouraging better technical skills and understanding around Blockchain technology. Students who’ve been involved in BEN have already gone on to help build successful Digital business likeAugur, one of the first decentralised apps using the Ethereum Blockchain, currently worth $1Billion.

Global firms are also using Blockchain for education reasons. PWC has developed Smart Credentials using Blockchain to record educational qualifications that can be stored and verified, so reducing the time it takes for them to check and screen candidates. Recording such personal data needs to be done with care, especially in the light of GDPR regulations. Which is why it is public Blockchains are unlikely to be used rather than permissioned ones.


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Blockchain
ICO
Information Services
Information Technology
Nonprofit Organization Management
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonmccauley/201...7c4bb76f04
There are a number of companies that are working on projects to tokenise Real Estate as it is believed that using a Digital Asset, they can offer fractional ownership (a share/a unit) of a property or a property fund.

The ability to trade tokenised property 24/7 on an exchange is touted as a way to improve liquidity for the property sector. Investing in property tends to be for the very wealthy or for institutional investors, given property values and the illiquid nature of buying and selling buildings and the fact that investors tend to buy and hold real estate for a number of years. 
Asset managers have for years offered ‘funds’ to encourage investors to gain exposure to the property sector, but often these funds have restrictions when you come to sell and this can result in some of them trading at a discount to their actual value of the properties they hold. 
Swiss firm Blockimmo now claim to be the first in Europe to launch tokenised real estate. If Real Estate tokenisation does create greater liquidity and allow 24/7 trading so attracting new investors, we will likely soon see tokenisation of existing real estate portfolios, raising new funds to invest in this asset class.

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Blockchain
Real Estate
https://150sec.com/swiss-startups-pioneer-euro...ale/10687/
Marseilles, the Mediterranean’s second busiest port and Frances largest, is using Blockchain technology to improve the efficiency of its supply chains and the way it handles freight and goods, looking at how it can make better use and share data in a highly secure manner. 

A number of ports are now using Blockchain technology, IBM and Maersk have a system that involves a number of organizations that are able to track in real time shipping data and shipping documentation. 
Meanwhile, Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, has a Blockchain initiative with bank ABN Amro and Samsung as they look at how to make the shipping of containers more efficient. Currently, there is an average of 28 different organizations involved in transport of one container from China to Europe. 
Shipping containers account for over 66% of all goods transported globally and the items they transport are valued at over $4 trillion worth of goods p.a. so efficiencies can make a huge impact. 

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Blockchain
Logistics And Supply Chain
Supply Chain
https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/french-governm...ics-pilot/
Bumble Bee, one of America’s largest food supply companies, has announced that they are partnering with SAP and using its cloud-based Blockchain technology platform.

Customers will be able to scan QR codes on the packaging with a smartphone to trace the journey of yellow-fin tuna when shopping, tracking the journey from the ocean to the shelf, providing traceability and so greater transparency and assurance that the fish is fresh and coming from sustainable sources – as they will know where and when it was caught.

Also in the USA Seattle-based Transparent Path, and Penta Network, from Los Angeles, have joined forces to offer greater traceability to shoppers and food producers. The aim is to quickly be able to track food supplies so reducing risks related to food-borne illnesses, and giving customers greater knowledge of how and where the food they are buying has been produced.

Such projects are becoming more and more common globally as consumers demand information of sustainability, provenance and higher food standards, especially in the light of an 83% rise in some meat and chicken product recalls over concerns around potential pathogens and food-based contaminants in the US last year.

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Blockchain
Food & Beverages
http://xparent.io/food-startups-transparent-pat...duce-risk/
The German government has issued a paper laying out how it wishes to encourage the spread of Blockchain businesses and “electronic instruments “ i.e. Digital Assets.

They want to ensure that investors are protected while expanding Germany’s global role - so that they’re not left behind in these sectors. 
Interestingly, German firm Naga was the first publicly listed company in Europe to carry out an Initial Coin Offering ( ICO), in 2017 when it raised Euros 40m from over 50,000 investors.
This announcement from the German government comes hot on the heels of its financial regulator, BaFin confirming that they have approved BitBond to issue Digital Bonds. This will be Europe’s first fully regulated Security Token. Bitbond has already issued $15m of loans and its platform has over 165,000 registered users. So like Naga seems to be attracting considerable interest from investors. 
The issuing of bonds using Blockchain technology is believed to be able to reduce the associated costs by over 60% so ought to enable smaller companies to be able to offer bonds creating an alternative source of finance. 
If issuing bonds using Blockchain technology is successful in reducing costs and allowing SMEs to issues bonds, then the Peer To Peer (P2P) lending market could face new competition. The P2P market is expected to grow to nearly $900 Billion by 2024. 

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Blockchain
ICO
Security Token
Digital Assets
https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/internatio...egulations
The $800 Billion fund manager company Invesco has launched an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on the London Stock exchange that will be investing in 48 different companies that have exposure to Blockchain technology.

The EFT will be investing in business such as microchip manufacturers, financial services companies, and IT firms that are using Blockchain technology. While the EFT will not be investing in actual Cryptocurrencies right now, it will have exposure to organizations that are building the infrastructure that Digital Assets require to gain wider adoption. While Invesco’s EFT will not be investing in Cryptos to trade Digital Assets, it is another sign of the importance that Blockchain is beginning to have on institutional investors.

As fund managers gain a better understanding of Blockchain and its ability to improve efficiency and profitability for companies, we expect to see more money finding its way into Digital Assets as the old barriers preventing asset managers buying into Digital Assets i.e. banking facilities, Professional Indemnity Insurance, independent custody services or regulated exchanges, are now being removed.

The infrastructure for fund managers is broadly in place. This is why we are now seeing more Security Tokens being launched and no doubt we will soon see new funds launched to invest in this NEW asset class.

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Blockchain
Cryptocurrency
Digital Assets
https://www.coindesk.com/a-blockchain-etf-is-la...ange-today
Sam Palmisano, the retired chairman of IBM in a recent interview on Bloomberg said it is hard to come up with a good solution for creating public blockchains which are fully compatible with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in Europe

Blockchains are immutable, so once data has been added it cannot be changed or removed, which is in direct conflict with GDPR.

Palmisano believes that because private blockchain has more centralization, ought to be more compliant, but because public blockchains are very decentralized they struggle to be compliant with GDPR.

Queen Marys and Cambridge Universities have also raised similar concerns. A possible solution is to ensure that Blockchains do not hold personal/ private data so this information would be held off chain where such data could be removed or changed if required at some stage in the future.

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Blockchain
Regulatory
https://readwrite.com/2019/03/04/how-can-blockc...compliant/
SWIFT handled on average over 34million messages a day last December and is used by many international banks to settle FX and cash positions daily.

SWIFT has had a virtual a monopoly with global banks but has been facing increasing pressure from RIPPLE, the third most valuable cryptocurrency which is capitalized at over $13 Billion, and at one stage in 2018 had grown in value by a whopping 37,000% in 12 months. SWIFT is now using Blockchain technology and is working with the Singapore stock exchange, HSBC, Standard Chartered, DBS and Deutsche bank to create a more efficient way to handle share voting. The majority of publicly quoted shares are held in nominee accounts and proxy voting has become increasingly difficult and cumbersome.

The new e-voting service SWIFT are developing is designed to be faster and more transparent and reduce errors which in the past have proved to be very expensive. In 2016 it cost a US brokerage over
$190million to compensate shareholders due to share proxy errors, as the current system is largely paper-based.

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Banking
Blockchain
https://www.chainbits.com/news/swift-partners-w...in-voting/
Alibaba, the world’s biggest FinTech company, which is capitalized at over $453Billion is planning to use Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) for its vast international logistics and supply chains.

Alibaba has been experimenting with Blockchain for a while with its Food Trust Framework as it tries to improve transparency, help customers track goods and ensure their authenticity. Using QR codes customers will be able to scan a good and have greater certainty over a product's provenance.

Given Alibaba’s distribution and financial clout, one wonders how long it will be before they launch the AliCoin as a possible way to encourage and reward customers in some form of loyalty scheme. An AliCoin could then be exchanged for goods and services as Alibaba continues its expansion into banking and financial services with Alipay.

 

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Blockchain
Fintech
IOT
Logistics And Supply Chain
Supply Chain
https://www.businesstelegraph.co.uk/alibaba-loo...nge-guide/
Lyft is the first ridesharing company to file an IPO in February 2019 and has also announced that it is partnering with Solve.Care to schedule transport to and fro for patients appointments to doctors, hospitals or clinics.

The aim is to coordinate and reduce the paperwork between insurers, patients and healthcare providers using automated payments using SLOVE tokens. Blockchain is increasingly being used in healthcare as the technology is ideally suited where data has to be held securely, yet shared by potentially many different parties in multiple locations.

Only last month the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim announced it was to deploy Blockchain for clinical recordkeeping and in
January 2019 Aetna said it too was starting to use Blockchain.

However, it is not just using Blockchain for clinical records but it is also being used to reduce the risk of using fraudulent drugs and to improve transparency in clinical drug trials which historically have been fraught with fraud and errors.

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Blockchain
IPO
http://www.tokenpost.com/Blockchain-healthcare-...-Lyft-1385
BlockFi, who raised over $54million last year has launched a high-interest account paying 6% p.a. if they hold your Bitcoin or Ethereum assets.

The reason they can pay such high-interest rates is because they lend out your Crypto to other institutions but more importantly, your Digital Assets are held by a custodian independent of BlockFi called Gemini Trust Company. Gemini was co-founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and is regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services.

This new way to hold Cryptocurrencies is another example of how the traditional and the Digital worlds are converging, as BlockFi are offering in effect an instant-access, high-interest account to depositors while providing institutional asset lending facilities. Because the transactions are stored on a Blockchain there are fewer intermediaries involved, it is secured using military-grade security and not reliant on one company’s server/computer as the records will be distributed thus reducing concerns over disaster recovery.

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Banking
Bitcoin
Blockchain
Cryptocurrency
Financial Services
https://www.newsbtc.com/2019/03/06/highest-yiel...-interest/
The Gulf Corporation Council (GCC), which coordinates renewable energy projects in Arabian States in the Persian Gulf has plans to install 80GW of renewable energy and is looking at how Blockchain technology can be used.

The CCC aim is that renewable energy will account for 50% of global energy requirements by 2050 and believes that Blockchain is ideal to track the production and final use of energy. By using Smart Contracts, Blockchains could make the peer-to-peer trade of energy a reality while charging consumers different price to encourage energy to be consumed at times when demand is usually low and capacity is high.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (
Dewa) and the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) are already using Smart Contracts to improve operational efficiencies. Meanwhile, Iberdrola, an energy firm in Spain, revealed earlier this year they were using Blockchain to track sustainable energy sources, using the Energy Web Foundation’s open-source blockchain platform.

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Blockchain
Renewable Energy
https://coinnewstelegraph.com/experts-believe-g...nge-guide/
Denver is going to use mobile phones and Blockchain technology to enable voting in their Denver mayoral May 2019 elections, so allowing eligible voters overseas and those on military duty the ability to also vote.

The technology powering this electronic voting has been used for 30 previous elections since 2016 and is provided by a company called Voatz who are owned by Overstock.Com. By trialing voting using mobile phone is to try and increase the % of people who vote and improve transparency. In the recent Mid Term Elections in the US only 47% of eligible people actually voted, which was the highest since 1968 when 49% of people voted.

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Blockchain
Smartphones
https://blockchainseo.net/denver-blockchain-mobile-voting/
Sam Palmisano, the retired chairman of IBM in a recent interview on Bloomberg said it is hard to come up with a good solution for creating public blockchains which are fully compatible with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in Europe.

Blockchains are immutable, so once data has been added it cannot be changed or removed, which is in direct conflict with GDPR.

Palmisano believes that because private blockchain has more centralization, ought to be more compliant, but because public blockchains are very decentralized they struggle to be compliant with GDPR.

Queen Marys and Cambridge Universities have also raised similar concerns. A possible solution is to ensure that Blockchains do not hold personal/ private data so this information would be held off chain where such data could be removed or changed if required at some stage in the future.

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Blockchain
Regulations
https://readwrite.com/2019/03/04/how-can-blockc...compliant/
Mercedes Benz has been actively involved in investigating using Blockchain technology since 2017.

It has been looking at how tokens can be used to Nudge and reward drivers with a Mercedes coin to improve fuel consumption, how Blockchain can be used by leasing and finance companies to keep track of a vehicle's history and ownership and now Mercedes is looking at improving its global supply chain management using Blockchain technology

Initially, Mercedes says it will focus on documentation to make it more consistent. Mercedes’ supplier contracts include clauses relating to working conditions, human rights, environmental protection, safety, business ethics, and compliance. Adherence to these obligations and sustainability, in particular, is logged on a blockchain, so any deviations become evident.


Many of the world’s car manufacturers are working on projects using Blockchain in their supply chain as they are complex and spread worldwide often operating on just in time basis to minimize the need to hold too much stock and components.


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Blockchain
Finance Supply Chain
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/02/merced...hains.html
Guy Hirsch, Managing rector of eToro U.S., sees the increased interest and investments in Digital Assets as a clear “generation shift."

He stated via press release: “we’re seeing the beginning of a generational shift in trust from traditional stock exchanges to crypto exchanges. At the heart of this change are the asset classes themselves.

Younger investors’ experience with the stock market has seen a great deal of loss of trust, with the fall of Lehman brothers...” One of the benefits of people investing in digital assets is that companies can know who their actual shareholders are and so have a relationship with them, and reward so offer them shareholder perks e.g. discounts off goods and services. This is almost impossible when shares are held as they currently are, in nominee structures.

Potentially companies could have no need for share registrars saving them money, as shareholders records can be updated in Real Time, which in turn would help regulators know who owns what which at the moment is impossible for a listed quoted company.

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Asset Management
Blockchain
Crypto
Digital Currency
Investment
Regulators
https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-is-the-gateway-drug...illennials
Nivaura has secured $20m of fresh capital, with investors including The London Stock Exchange (LSE), Santander and the law firm Allen and Overy.

LSE will also have one of their staff joining the Nivaura board.
Nivaura was the first company in the world in 2017 to issue a bond for a client using a Blockchain while in the UK FCA Sandbox and they claim that the time needed to issue bonds could be reduced by 60% by using Blockchain technology. They have recently been followed by BVVA in Spain who issued a bond using Blockchain technology to raise $160m.
If it proves to be so much cheaper to access the debt markets using Blockchains then bonds could become an option for SMEs to raise capital, which in turn could be competition for the Peer 2 Peer lenders…

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Blockchain
Fintech
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo...3ca6596e46
Signature bank of New York has announced that it is now offering bank accounts for businesses based in Bermuda that deal in Digital Assets.

There are believed to be over 60 companies that initially this will be of great assistance to, as despite the Bermuda government changing it’s law no locally based bank offer accounts in the Crypto sector. However, Signature bank claims that they are signing up companies that are also not involved with Cryptos.

The lack of banking facilities is a major hurdle facing businesses that deal in Digital Assets globally as it is extremely difficult to get a bank account in many jurisdictions around the world.

In the UK Clearbank  which is the first bank in over 250 years to be granted clearing bank status, is one of the is one of the few banks to offer bank accounts to firms engaged in Digital Assets but the company needs to be FCA regulated or in the process of applying to the FCA to be accepted by Clearbank.

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Banking
Blockchain
Crypto
Digital Currency
https://coinfomania.com/signature-bank-services...n-bermuda/