Banks can either embrace digital transformation with cutting-edge tools or risk becoming obsolete. Central to this transformative landscape is blockchain technology. Originally the backbone of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain has evolved far beyond its initial application.

With its decentralized, transparent, and immutable nature, the use of blockchain in banking presents an enticing prospect for financial institutions seeking to optimize their operations – and expand their customer offering.

Common Problems in the Banking System

It’s no surprise that banking behemoths worldwide are pooling resources to explore this technology’s potential. Collaborative research and innovative initiatives are setting the stage for a banking ecosystem where blockchain isn’t just an afterthought but a core part of operations. But what are currently banking’s biggest challenges? Here are a few examples:

Ensuring Consistently Secure and Transparent Transactions

Blockchain applications in banking technology offer several key advantages in the banking sector. Firstly, it ensures secure and transparent transaction recording, a leap from traditional banking, where transactions are logged in a centralized database.

The blockchain operates on a semi-decentralized system, permitting only trusted entities to host validating nodes. This design minimizes the chances of the entire system getting compromised from a single weak point, thus curtailing the threat of fraud and cyber–attacks.

Inefficiency Caused by the Use of Intermediaries

Furthermore, blockchain technology in banking can significantly enhance efficiency and diminish expenses. Traditional banking processes involve intermediaries like clearinghouses and custodians, which extend the time and cost of transactions. With blockchain, the need for these intermediaries is drastically reduced, facilitating swifter and more economical transactions. Such efficiency can translate to substantial cost reductions for both banks and their clientele.

The Slow Process of Settlement

Banks often grapple with protracted settlement procedures riddled with numerous intermediaries. This is where the application of blockchain technology in banking can shine. The cumbersome processes inherent to traditional banking can be sidestepped using blockchain as opposed to centralized processing methods. As a result, transactions are not only traceable within hours instead of days but also streamline operations for both banks and customers, ensuring quicker turnaround times and more straightforward procedures.

7 Blockchain Benefits in Banking

There’s a long list of banking challenges that can be addressed by using blockchain banking solutions. Just a few of the use cases we see include:

Enhancing Security

Banks commonly face cyberattacks, technical glitches, and human errors that expose customer data. The use of blockchain in banking improves security through cryptographic protection for identity verification and data distribution without the need for intermediaries. Furthermore, blockchain reduces data breach risks by eliminating single points of failure. Smart contracts offer automated transactions, adding another layer of security.

Payments

Cross-border payments can benefit from blockchain’s direct lender connectivity, sidelining intermediaries like SWIFT – while SWIFT’s past vulnerabilities also make a clear case for blockchain applications in banking. Blockchain transactions are secure, fast, and low-cost, making international remittances more efficient.

Accounting, Audit and Error Reduction

Blockchain’s immutable records streamline accounting and audit procedures, likely enhancing regulatory compliance. Smart contracts manage exchanges, minimizing trust issues and reducing errors.

Overall, blockchain has the capability to ensure more control and implement further safeguards, drastically minimizing the risk of fraud and improper use of company resources. With blockchain, every transaction is transparent and easily verifiable, leading to more consistent and accurate processing by banks.

Lending and Borrowing

Blockchain in banking could revamp traditional lending by improving verification, reducing bad loans, and bolstering KYC and AML measures. Likewise, syndicated loans, which require multiple banks’ coordination, can benefit from blockchain by sharing KYC and AML data.

In conventional systems, it can be a tedious process for lenders to assess a borrower’s credit history, especially since detailed credit reports from third-party bureaus might not be available for many small business operators. Blockchain, on the other hand, introduces mechanisms that can enhance the accuracy, transparency, and secure sharing of credit histories.

Trading

Blockchain can revolutionize clearing and settlement in trading, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. When thinking about trade finance, blockchain also has a role to play because blockchain can digitize the paper-heavy trade finance sector.

Trade finance, an industry still reliant on outdated paper processes, can take up to 120 days for individual transaction processing, but blockchain offers a solution by digitizing the trade finance lifecycle, enhancing security, transparency, and efficiency, and modernizing document authentication and financing structures.

Asset Management

Blockchain impacts asset management by streamlining asset and stakeholder processes. It enables automated fund launches, digitizes assets for better market access and liquidity, and integrates customizable privacy settings for secure transactions.

Additionally, blockchain enhances user experience by embedding shareholder rights into digital assets, which reduces human error and promotes transparent governance. It fosters efficient cap table management, automated fund administration, and transfer agency in asset management. 

Enhanced Compliance

The immutable nature of blockchain also bolsters compliance. By granting access to auditors and governmental authorities, every transaction can be viewed with unparalleled transparency on the blockchain.

Moreover, banks have an improved capability to detect and flag suspicious transactions swiftly, making the auditing process more efficient. This advancement benefits financial institutions and fintech companies alike, as they can now furnish digital records promptly, facilitating a swifter and more straightforward audit.

Popular Cases of Using Blockchain in the Banking Sector

Now that the benefits of blockchain in banking are clear, let’s take a look at a few use cases of blockchain in banking. In this section, we look at two most illustrative examples: CBDC projects and Onyx by JPMorgan.

CBDC Projects by Various State Governments

These days, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) are undoubtedly the hottest blockchain-related trend in banking. The concept of implementing digital tokens instead of physical tokens – banknotes – as national currencies has drawn global interest. That’s why more and more countries are actively researching the benefits and potential flaws of digital currencies issued by central banks.

One of such countries is Australia, where the Reserve Bank has conducted a CBDC pilot program. The results of this program outlined four financial aspects that can use digital currencies to their advantage. Overall, the potential Central Bank Digital Currency may lead to the following improvements:

• Ensuring uniformity among new types of private digital money. For example, such types include bank deposits in the form of digital tokens, as well as stablecoins backed by reliable assets. Here, the role of a CBDC is to ensure interoperability regarding new forms of digital money. 
• Promoting further innovations in asset markets. The main point of interest in this context is the implementation of specialized platforms using the DLT – distributed ledger technology. It gives the possibility to perform asset tokenization, including real assets, financial assets, and other types.
• Enhancing smart payments. The introduction of a digital token supported by the central bank can enable various complex transactions that are not currently supported by payment systems. Another related possibility here is the rising popularity of smart contracts using CBDCs. They enable performing automatic payments upon meeting certain predefined conditions. For example, this allows performing simultaneous automated transactions between several parties, reducing the need for reconciliation.
• Improving the resilience of the country’s digital economy. CBDCs provide an alternative method of payment for businesses and individuals. The most beneficial feature in this context is that this form of digital money does not require an account in a commercial bank. Additionally, with the help of modern technological advances, it may allow performing electronic transactions in “offline” or emergency situations, for example, during blackouts.

In the case of the Australian CBDC, it represented a direct claim on the Reserve Bank of Australia. However, other countries are actively experimenting with other types of digital currencies and their integration into national financial systems. For example, the Bank of England is currently developing a digital pound or “Britcoin” by testing the features of public blockchains and other distributed ledger types. Similarly, the European Central Bank is preparing the pilot program for the digital euro. 

Now, according to the Atlantic Council, 130 countries have CBDC-related programs, compared to only 35 countries in 2020. Moreover, 11 states have already launched their respective digital currencies. So, as you can see, blockchain technology in the form of Central Bank Digital Currencies is the next big thing in financial systems around the world.

Onyx by J.P. Morgan

In 2020, J.P. Morgan, a subsidiary of one of the largest global banks, JPMorgan Chase, launched its blockchain-based platform. The creators of this platform, called Onyx, aimed at revolutionizing the flow of assets and financial data around the world. For this ambitious task, Onyx uses blockchain technology to enhance and automate various steps of payment and settlement processes. 

Onyx has several components that are focused on providing different services. For example, Liink is a peer-to-peer network for the secure exchange of information. Coin Systems and its JPM Coin are designed to mitigate the flaws of existing payment systems. Digital Assets is a platform that enables converting financial assets into blockchain tokens in order to provide transparency and improve their mobility and utilization.

Overall, J.P. Morgan has surely found a way to integrate the benefits of blockchain technology into the banking sector. Onyx is constantly developing, bringing more services and improvements for its clients. The extensive list of features includes smart contracts with programmable payments, asset tokenization, cross-border, multi-currency, or machine-to-machine payments, and much more.  

Conclusion

As you can see, the banking sector is undergoing significant changes these days. Conventional methods can barely keep up with the pace and demands of the modern world. That’s why even the oldest banks have to undergo digital transformation, including the implementation of blockchains. Banks need technological advances to enhance their services and bring their clients higher levels of convenience, transparency, and security. 

Blockchain isn’t new, yet its potential in banking has still not been fully explored because of the industry’s conservative view and behavior. The fear of experimenting with blockchain and other technologies is fully understandable because of the risks. However, refusal to adapt to modern rules and technologies will very likely bring significant challenges in the future.

As a company that has 15+ years of experience in creating digital solutions (including blockchain-based) for the banking industry, we are open to collaboration with businesses of all sizes. A Neobank startup or an established fintech enterprise – we can satisfy every business need in blockchain and technology.

Our blockchain consulting and development services cover a wide range of solutions for banking, fintech, insurance, and many other industries – DApps (distributed applications), smart contracts development and audit, wallets and exchanges, AML/KYC compliance, and a lot more. If you’re looking for an experienced and reliable team that can build complex solutions from scratch and integrate them in your banking ecosystem, don’t hesitate to drop us a line and tell us what you need. 

Use all the advantages of blockchain to the fullest with Intellectsoft!

The post How Blockchain Changing the Banking Sector? appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Both AI and blockchain have the power to revolutionalize traditional industries, and it’s common for key executives to examine these technologies with interest and fear.

At the same time, the zest of insurance companies in AI and blockchain is weaker than on average, comparing to other market sectors.

As Deloitte states, only 1.33% of insurance vendors actually bought AI tools; it’s more common for them to pay attention to the internet and software — the indicator here is 32%. When it comes to blockchain, the technology itself is mostly associated with decentralized finances, digital currencies, and the banking sector.

Nevertheless, it’s applied in insurance too: out of 200 blockchain solutions registered by McKinsey Panorama FinTech 20 were insurance-related. And their number is increasing with the growing interest and better understanding of these technologies.

In general, blockchain and AI still demonstrate relatively weak positions in insurance, comparing to the other industries. Due to these frequency lagging and additional implementation problems, we’ll show in which technologies you can invest today to gain an immediate competitive advantage.

What’s the Main Application of AI in Insurance

The ways AI improves the regular processes in insurance are numerous, but all of them are closely connected with data management.

In the current age of “datafication” of businesses and the growing power of Big Data, AI provides sophisticated yet intuitive tools for processing the information and drawing relevant insights. You can use them for your own good in many ways.

In the insurance sector, AI can help change the approach in data management from primitive data gathering to its effective processing.

For example, you can get working software to provide custom insurance packages to the clients based on the personal data collected during the entry surveys. It can advise car insurance based on the number and characteristics of clients’ automobiles. Or you can offer a particular health insurance package linked to the lifestyle specifics of each customer.

And all these advantages and personalization — without the need to spend time and human resources doing all the paperwork, linking a CRM software, learning your personnel how to work with it, and gathering the team of analysts to provide the insights.

AI can do everything by itself to give you concrete answers to the question “what to do with terabytes of data we’ve been collecting for years”. And an important next step: the technology can transform all these insights into repetitive tasks.

Just imagine how much time it saves you on doing some other important business tasks! That’s the competitive advantage essence of AI in insurance.

How Blockchain in Insurance is Applied

The short answer to the question “what is blockchain insurance?” is smarter financing. Its perspectives go far beyond money management and include higher customer engagement, better scaling, and effective digitalization.

In short, blockchain for insurance means the greater power of customer-controlled personalized data.

Thus, the main good the technology brings is to empower the traditional models with highly innovative and personalized solutions. In particular, you can manage records and process payments faster.

Another set of advantages includes better budget management, risk mitigation, improvements in customer service, and building mutual trust in communication with key stakeholders.

In practice, blockchain provides insurers with the effective tools to prevent frauds, simplify the application process, improve directory accuracy, and create records with full customer profiles.

Top 5 AI Insurance Examples

Here’s the list of key AI insurance services and innovations you can invest in these days to gain a competitive advantage in the market.

AI in Auto Insurance

In the automotive industry, an AI insurance company can offer a customized approach. As a special service, you can adapt your current process and prepare to switch to self-driving cars in the near future — as the Coronavirus global lockdown in 2020 showed, it’s important to be ready to implement new working models immediately.

In general, AI technology can assist in getting new revenue streams and being in touch with your clients through chatbots and customized communication templates.

AI in Life Insurance

When it comes to your personal life, AI can provide relevant insights with automated input management. This tool collects information about clients’ previous life events, along with their frequency, to offer personalized services and packages that really matter.

AI in Insurance Startups

InsurTech is a highly prospective direction of AI insurance development. Small firms like Clover, Fabric, GetSafe, and Trov offer selective software services on a decent level to cover the growing interest of insurance executives in the technology.

Among the solutions offered, you can request claims-handling chatbots, smart consulting on insurance packages, and quotes generation.

Lead Generation

AI insurance can help in attracting new clients and turning them into sales appointments. The software can scan social media, forums, and email databases to search for potential leads and offer them insurance services.

What’s more, the intelligence component in the technology can reveal itself in making a highly personalized message with the pre-designed template.

For example, it can offer travel insurance to a person who announced on Facebook he’s about to visit a foreign country. All the processes will happen automatically.

Fraud Management

AI can prevent severe fraud-connected problems in insurance companies. In this case, the technology will investigate the possible factors and threats while handling claims to get an objective picture of the previous events.

If a person claims he became a victim of an earthquake somewhere in Mexico, AI will scan the news from this country to check whether an earthquake actually took place and who were the victims according to the hospital reports.

This way, investing in AI technology will save money on paying investigators and covering frauds.

Blockchain in Insurance: Use Cases

Blockchain and insurance together create several interesting examples. Here are the exact things insurance blockchain startups can do.

Blockchain in Life Insurance

Like AI, blockchain can facilitate dealing with life insurance. In the case of this technology, its main strength is providing extra cost-effectiveness.

Smart contracts effectively track and deal with insurance on the micro-level, thanks to its regulated decentralization principle. As another dimension, the devices from the Internet of Things (IoT) world can assist insurers in tracking threats and preventing frauds.

Customer Engagement

One of the main problems at the stage of data collection is the unwillingness of clients to give sensitive answers to insurance agents. Blockchain can assist you here.

By guaranteeing higher protection and greater control over personal data, the technology encourages clients of insurance companies to share their information freely. You can request it as Know-Your-Customer (KYC) data service, where clients not only share identity information on a smart contract basis but also re-use it for faster and safer verification in other companies.

Blockchain in Auto Insurance

The technology can bring the payouts on auto insurance to the next level. For example, in the case of a car accident, both sides will get the necessary information to build trust: a client will get an immediate payout, while the insurer will see that the car is repaired by a licensed service provider.

In contrast to traditional models, blockchain can do it faster and through a credible network, which significantly increases speed and customer satisfaction.

P2P Insurance Operations

Smart contracts can increase customer satisfaction with insurance services when it comes to immediate payouts and claims handling. This use case is implemented by P2P flight insurance from InsureETH.

The startup offers software that scans flight information from verified sources and provides automated insurance coverage for a delayed or canceled flight.

This way, the insurance company and the client can save time and nerves during appointments and handling extra paperwork to get compensation.

Greater Cost-Effectiveness

Blockchain can save insurers money on various stages of the working process: while identity verification, checking contract terms, reporting claims, and collecting data from third parties.

In this context, it can cover the tasks normally handled by several executives in a firm and reduce the negative effect of a possible human mistake to a minimum.

Main Challenges of AI and Blockchain in Insurance

In practice, AI and blockchain complement each other: while blockchain offers advanced tools to gather information, AI can process and analyze it effectively. Nevertheless, many companies face severe implementation problems while trying to apply them both simultaneously.

In theory, the technologies sound like a brilliant idea — but it’s not easy to apply them smartly. Thus, first and foremost, it’s important to find a reliable vendor who can introduce AI and blockchain skillfully.

AI Limitations and Implementation Problems

To work in a satisfactory manner, AI needs lots of data. If your insurance company is not accustomed to collecting masses of information from clients, AI tools will have nothing to analyze and provide insights from.

In this context, it’s important that all this data is closely linked to both organizational and customer needs, meaning that information should be both relevant to insurance company activity and be about your client.

If you offer life insurance, it’s important to clarify all the risky things your client does. But checking the breakfast preferences is not a relevant question in the survey.

Blockchain Limitations and Implementation Problems

Blockchain needs certain pre-defined conditions too. Like AI, blockchain reveals its best in complicated transactions that involve numerous parties and complex reporting.

If your insurance company relies on direct transactions and has a trusted intermediary you’re totally satisfied with, you don’t need this technology. Moreover, blockchain can bring you problems in terms of scalability, safety, and standardization.

In particular, it’s not recommended to implement it for all your financial operations at once — as its consensus-based validation is not adapted yet to fast growth.

Besides, specific cyberattacks and the need to develop standards from scratch also call for taking a wise approach and switch to blockchain step-by-step and at a moderate pace.

Insurance Industry Limitations and Implementation Problems

In addition to technological complexity, the insurance industry itself is not totally ready to switch to AI and blockchain. Here, the main problems refer to data collection, the power of traditional approaches, and prejudices towards new “unknown” technologies.

Considering the essential need for cooperation during the early implementation stage, these factors can become a severe obstacle and the main reason for failure.

Among the stakeholders whose involvement is critical, consider C-level executives, tech startups, regulators, and customers. To facilitate the process, attract a software development consultant from a reputable company.

How to Implement Blockchain and AI in Insurance

If you need consultation on the need and perspectives to implement AI and blockchain in your business, feel free to contact us! We, at Intellectsoft, can recommend and build for you the requested solution and offer a wide range of extra custom insurance software development services.

You can choose the one you need by yourself or after talking to our consultant. Contact our experts and find out more about AI and blockchain technology in insurance and how your insurance company can start benefiting from them today!

The post Top Services Empowered by AI and Blockchain in Insurance: Tools You Can Request in 2021 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

It’s worth noting that such a statement resulted in 5% Bitcoin value growth.

At a present moment, the purchase of Teslas is possible on the territory of the US only, but soon we expect the opportunity to pay for it with Bitcoin all over the world.

Bitcoin as well as the overall blockchain technology still stays on top and it will only keep gaining momentum after the latest news.

 Blockchain technology has a powerful potential to introduce a new level of transparency, automation, and efficiency for businesses and can be implemented in various ways.

Most organizations find it challenging to understand and apply the full power of Blockchain and DLTs to get tangible business results.

Our team is passionate about utilizing our technical capabilities, experience, and product mindset to help our clients effectively extract real business value by implementing blockchain and DLT across their organization.

We have access to the biggest pool of blockchain engineering, cryptography, and cybersecurity talent in Eastern Europe.

Intellectsoft’s expertise has already helped dozens of SMBs and enterprises including E&Y, London Stock Exchange, The World Bank, Nestle, and Shell.

Feel free to discover more about Blockchain Technology from our webinar where we will give you an exhaustive overview that will help you learn more and implement blockchain solutions for your enterprise.

The post Buying Tesla with Bitcoin: the Never-Ending Potential of Blockchain Technology appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

However, today we will focus on one of the most prospective areas for various digital improvement implementations – the healthcare industry.

In this article, we will study the peculiarities of blockchain implementation into healthcare, analyze the main challenges of this process, and the advantages you can get from it.

Blockchain — the New HIE Model

The modern healthcare industry becomes more complex and now covers the patient services and care coordination and treatment monitoring, hospital navigation & information access, remote and in-house patient monitoring, patient experience, etc. But, with the blockchain, data management becomes much more straightforward and transparent.

What Is Blockchain?

In the healthcare industry, blockchain is a system of information recording, which implies the data’s inability to be changed, hacked, or the system cheating. There are plenty of benefits you can get from blockchains implementing:

• Healthcare system transparency
• Security enhancing
• Data traceability improving
• Transactions efficiency and speed-boosting
• Investments are reducing

As you can see, all these improvements can significantly boost healthcare institutions and influence.

HIE Pain Points & Blockchain Solutions

To prove the blockchain’s efficiency, it is crucial to analyze the main issues it can resolve.

Source: Deloitte

Data Correcting

With blockchain, it becomes much easier to add or update a certain data, additionally protecting it from any change. To correct or remove data from the chain, it is needed to create a new record with correct data that supersedes the previous, or one that makes the previous record deleted. As an example, the blockchain system is used for storing transaction records or patient treatment information.

Information Exchange

The healthcare units, patients, insurers, and researchers can resolve the data exchange and availability thanks to the blockchains. Additionally, it can transform the data operating and even provide the ability to commercialize the data access.

Health Records Monitoring

The blockchain is used to identify, connect, monitor the health records, and control the access to this data. In the future, this technology will be widely developed to improve health records.

Transactions Recording

Speed up the transaction process and increase its efficiency can be easily reached with blockchains. Thus, the healthcare units can always track the data related to the funds operating and also have accurate information about each transaction made.

Blockchain as an Enabler of Nationwide Interoperability

The blockchain implementation can optimize and secure the data management so as to get the most of the medical treatment progress in various areas.

This process may be divided into four steps:

Step 1. Data Creating & Updating

Here the health institutions record the clinical data and patient’s public ID to the blockchain.

Step 2. Transaction Processing & Storage

At this stage, each change is recorded on the blockchain in the patient’s public ID (without any personal information).

Step 3. Data Query

The health organizations can ask for providing information on the blockchain and get the general data for further research. This procedure is highly required for medical issue research.

Step 4. Patient’s Data Sharing

However, it is also possible to share the private key to allow healthcare organizations and institutions to get full personal data. For this purpose, the patient can give his permission for data examination with the private key. The confidential data will remain unavailable for those who don’t have that key.

Implementation Challenges and Considerations

Now the blockchain has been widely used for traditional systems improving in different countries. Nevertheless, it is crucial for healthcare institutions, as it can significantly improve the treatment procedure and even save people’s lives. To draw an example, let’s review the real cases on how the blockchain system can resolve issues in healthcare.

Case 1. Medical Error Reducing

According to the WHO statistics, medical errors account for 6 to 17% of all cases in hospitals. And, when in low- and middle-income countries that happen because of the lack of evidence, in high and higher-income countries, it is caused by the limited access to the data, insufficient qualified primary care specialists, and paper-based record system.

With blockchains applying, you will make the first step towards the healthcare institutions digitizing and unifying.

So, the hospitals can share the big data fluently and automate the processes, thus reducing medical error. Consequently, it will greatly boost the medical service efficiency and healthcare system improvement.

Case 2. Drug Counterfeiting

This problem is crucial not only for the pharmaceutical companies’ income but also for the patients who suffered or even have lost their lives because of taking counterfeit medicines.

Blockchain applications can greatly optimize the drug supply by providing relevant information about the medicine and its transaction details. Furthermore, it will help monitor the drug’s availability in any healthcare institution and their certificates and quantity.

Case 3. Medical Research

Nowadays, up to 50% go unreported, and sometimes researchers don’t share their outcomes. This results in the data gap for the requisitioners and can be harmful to patients’ health.

However, by sharing & updating the patients’ treatment results (with their consent), the blockchain recording can benefit the medical research process. That means more fruitful cooperation between the patients and researchers and more correct research data results.

Shaping the Blockchain Future

It goes without saying that blockchains have a great impact on healthcare structure optimization. The various improvements can be noticed with data managing and operating, transactions processing, health records monitoring, etc.

So, the healthcare units upgrade the traditional process performing into a more efficient, distributed worldwide system.

Intellectsoft is always here to help you and your corporation with any complex process optimization and upgrading.

If you are looking for the best option for your business improvement, contact us. Our experts will definitely do detailed research about the topic and provide you with the most beneficial options for your business.

The post Blockchain: The New Model for Health Information Exchanges (HIE) appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

In “PART 2”, we’ll keep revealing two more strategies and sharing scientific data, so you can be sure to include all the necessary details when you create your next fintech strategy.

5 Fintech Strategies for 2021: Summary

1. Real-life adoption of Big Data and enhanced analytics
2. Changing and shifting legacy systems
3. Move to online banking
4. Developing blockchain and platforms
5. Automatic robotic processes

Blockchain Solutions

Blockchain is among the technologies that shape the world’s future. It’s already the core of numerous innovations and is about to define the digital landscape of 2021 in 4 ways:

• ICO Launch Support
• Cryptocurrency operations
• Smart Contracts
• Identity Management

2020 Global Blockchain Report by Deloitte shows that blockchain has turned into an integral part of organizational innovation as “a top-five strategic priority” for companies. Among key advantages already offered, these digital solutions contribute to cybersecurity empowerment and the DeFi (decentralized finance) development. In a broader social context, the know-how helps establish sustainable food safety, provide digital identities to impoverished people and refugees, and prevent uncontrolled weapons tracking.

For businesses, blockchain solutions promise significant facilitation and productivity boost. For example, it helps to trace the lost and previously unnecessary data for accurate decision-making. Also, blockchain is irreplaceable in ownership protection, providing easy-to-track distribution that protects the rights of creators. Finally, the technology shapes the future of transactions, with further development and greater popularity of smart contracts and cryptocurrency operations.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

According to McKinsey insights, the adoption of robotics automation technologies has accelerated during the pandemic, especially in processing workflows. In 2021, we expect to witness the growing popularities of these RPA technologies:

• Account reconciliation,
• Automated mailers,
• Monthly account reviews, and
• Regulatory reporting.

In essence, the installation of robots is already a new industrial trend. Even though Hollywood movies tended to dramatize the situation with apocalyptic movies, reality shows that humans and robots work well together. With the robots’ involvement, it’s possible to simultaneously do the job or delegate certain processes and tasks that are better completed if done automated.

The reality of social distancing makes robotic process automation a good solution not to stop manufacturing. Moreover, it can serve as the basis for remote collaborative coding and any other way of automating the routing processes remotely. As another core use case, the RPA industry helps to deal with staff shortages. In particular, it can cover the elementary tasks of entry-level personnel effectively.

The Future of Fintech: How to Make It as Bright as It Seems

Of course, nobody knows the future. We can only make predictions from the current dynamics and prepare for the possible changes based on these forecasts. By taking into account the statistical data from key analytical centers and our experience in the field, we see the future in financial software — with or without Coronavirus, this black swan factor of today.

To make the most of Fintech opportunities, we recommend picking the IT partner who knows how to help you grow. You can refer to us. At Intellectsoft, we offer a wide list of financial software development services — including online banking, blockchain & cryptocurrencies, digital wallet apps, AI and ML solutions, securities trading automation, and RPA enhancements.

Talk to our experts and get a personalized recommendation on the benefits Fintech can bring to your business!

The post 5 Most Promising Strategies For Financial Software Development in 2021 [Part 2] appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

FinTech companies and startups’ changing dynamic forces them to be more adaptive to stay afloat or pivot during these difficult times. Financial institutions from all over the world change the way people practice their finance. These are all credited to the growth of new digital trends such as Cryptocurrency, Contactless, Trading.

The upcoming webinar “The Future of FinTech: Insights, Trends, and Use Cases Defining the Industry in 2021” offers fintech visionaries access to the unique resources for accelerating the infusion of digital finance in their business.

Throughout the live 45-minute talk, our top minds will develop a robust digital fintech blueprint for the financial companies, tapping into Intellectsoft’s IT expertise and know-how of the fintech sector.

Register Now

In this webinar, you’ll hear from industry experts who will discuss five promising trends shaping the fintech industry in 2021, including:

• Online banking
• Mobile wallets
• Cryptocurrency and blockchain
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning
• Trading and securities

The webinar also reveals never-before-seen use cases of emerging technologies for digital finance and generates a common language for accelerated collaboration across the executive’s organizations. Participants explore a strategic overview of real-life solutions application, leaving with a strategic roadmap that ensures sustainability across all the stakeholders.

Emerging FinTech trends that are most likely to impact fintech businesses in 2021

Learning Outcomes Include: 

• Exploring global fintech trends every leader should look out for in 2021
• Revealing how to make your fintech business stand out in the post-digital world
• Discovering today’s featured examples of Intellectsoft clients’ technology solutions that can help you provide better and more efficient services
• Discussing how to evolve in 2021 using emerging technologies and more efficient solutions

Meet Your Hosts for the Webinar: 

After the webinar, all participants will have a chance to discuss the topic with our experts in a Q&A session.

Click here to sign up and learn more about the webinar.

The post Webinar: The Future of FinTech. Insights, Trends, and Use Cases Defining the Industry in 2021 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

How mature is blockchain in healthcare, and what are the barriers to adoption? Blockchain for healthcare ranks as the number four industry of interest. Moreover, the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) creation allowed engaging all stakeholders in a practical discussion on blockchain solutions for health.

Ways Blockchain Is Taking Over the Modern Healthcare Industry

How Will Blockchain Affect the Cost of Healthcare?

Master Patient Index and Cost per transaction. There is an overwhelming amount of duplicated data, which translates into additional storage cost. Furthermore, over 50 different electronic healthcare record (EHR) software systems operate in various hospitals, sometimes in the same city.

MedRec by the MIT team, for example, is offering a transparent and accessible view of medical history. Their project runs on the Ethereum blockchain and is currently under development in partnership with a newly-established Healthcare Information Technology Center in Israel. Simultaneously, it is running tests of a data set from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Taken from MedRec

What Healthcare Data Should Be Put on the Blockchain?

Notably, not all information should be stored within the blockchain, but a distributed ledger can help manage the data more transparently and securely. For instance, IBM is disrupting veterinary medicine by allowing to create and store USDA certificates on the blockchain.

Apart from certificates, there can be proofs of ownership and timestamps of environment conditions, so critical for logistics in the pharmaceutical field. IBM is also working on this in partnership with KPMG, Merck, and FDA.

Finally, mass-market gadgets like smartwatches and fitness trackers can track patients’ state of health. Connecting them with EHRs throughout a lifetime makes it more efficient for the insurance industry to evaluate risks and calculate premiums.

How Has COVID-19 Pushed for Blockchain Adoption?

McKinsey has reported that the COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated telemedicine usage, rising from 11% to 46% in the US consumer adoption. According to them, around $250 billion of current US spending on healthcare could be virtualized.

Gartner reports that healthcare blockchain use cases include a digital asset market amid record-keeping and increasing efficiency. Learn how the Ocean Protocol has aided governments to collect and interpret critical data for improving healthcare.

X-Ray vision by the Ocean Protocol

Will Patients Own their Data?

To say that data access will improve is an underestimation. Having full ownership over your medical data will be more user-friendly and less time-consuming. A recent case is an EU-funded project MyHealthMyData, which is exploring how sensitive medical data is shared.

How will the interaction with doctors be affected? Taken the rise of telehealth, there will often be no need to interact with a doctor to access personal data. Moreover, blockchain will improve healthcare with its key features.

An excerpt from the McKinsey report

Adopting Blockchain in Healthcare

Privacy and Security

With regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, patient privacy is not optional but a default. Organizations that operate with identifier and health information – hence, protected health information (PHI) – can leverage blockchain for such properties as

• Confidentiality
• Integrity
• Availability

Performance and Interoperability

Current healthcare interoperability standards – HIE (Health Information Exchange) and HL7 FHIR (Fast Health Interoperability Resources) – can be used at full potential when paired with customizable blockchain frameworks like Hyperledger. They show impressive throughput and scalability when dealing with lightweight metadata, audit, and transaction information.

Deloitte argues that smart contracts can assist with mitigating inconsistent rules and permissions. These contracts are self-executable on blockchain and can automate and standardize the PHI exchange while providing distributed secure access.

How to Deploy Blockchain?

Healthcare legacy systems urge for an extensive infrastructure transition. There are numerous opportunities, as well as challenges. We, at Intellectsoft, empower companies that are looking for innovative solutions.

One way to start with blockchain for healthcare is to choose the BaaS model. Another option is to deploy its network to collaborate with multiple partners and improve medical information sharing between data owners and service providers.

Talk to our experts and find out more about the differences and how your organization can start benefiting from day one.

The post Blockchain in Modern Healthcare. Adopting Real Cases by 2021 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Worldwide pandemic has shown us that countries and their authorities around the globe have to pay more attention and invest more in healthcare IT solutions, the development and enhancement of the medical field.

Top 10 Technology Trends in Healthcare

Nowadays, we experience digital transformation in numerous industries, and healthcare is not an exception to this process. The implementation of available tools and solutions has given rise for several healthcare technology trends among which the following ones:

1. Telemedicine
2. Internet of Medical Things
3. Cloud computing
4. AI/ML
5. AR
6. VR
7. Chatbots
8. Blockchain
9. Data science
10. EHR

Although the process of transformation has only started, the number of benefits they have will change the future of the healthcare field by reducing the costs, giving better diagnosis results, making it easier to get treatment in remote areas, saving time, etc.

Emerging Healthcare Technology Trends and Their Deployment

 Worldwide pandemic has shown us that countries all around the world should pay more attention and invest more in the development and enhancement of the healthcare environment. Making it better means the prevention of severe problems and situations like this one.

Deployment of all the latest technology trends in the healthcare industry can significantly change the image of the field we know today. The enhancement will lead to thousands of saved lives in emergencies.

Intellectsoft helps organizations and companies across various industries, including healthcare, to implement and use technologies for the sake of human life. If you have a revolutionary idea in mind that can help people fight diseases, talk to our experts, and learn more about the topic. Our team of professionals can turn your idea into reality, and together we can make this world a better place.

Telemedicine Trends: Remote Treatment

Telemedicine is a remote diagnosis and treatment of patients using telecommunication technologies as given by the World Health Organization (the WHO) in the 2010 report on eHealth. The use of cutting edge telemedicine trends is especially useful in areas that have limited or no developed infrastructure.

For instance, locals in Alaska recognized two decades ago that some villages do not have proper access to healthcare services, and there are no doctors or practicing nurses. Thus, they tried to bring telemedicine trends into practice and bridged patients with doctors or practicing nurses with specialists who can help locals get high-quality treatment.

Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has successfully used this technology since 2001, and now there is no need to go on a long journey when it is unnecessary. Trends in telemedicine that have already been applied have given a chance for ship crews to get on-board treatment. Maritime doctors in Alaska are already treating sailors using telehealth platforms and show excellent results.

Trends in telemedicine also show high potential for education and sharing knowledge between developed and developing countries, as they bring together specialists from different countries.

Internet of Medical Things Trends: Connected Wearables

The Internet of Medical Things is another trend in healthcare. It is the collection of medical and wearable devices that connect to healthcare IT systems through online computer networks.

The Internet of things in medical devices gives a chance to take a number of common medical measurements like temperature, blood pressure, glucose level, heart rate, etc. Internet of Medical Things includes such wearables and devices as

• ECG,
• EKG monitors,
• smart beds,
• glucose monitors,
• connected inhalers, etc.

Companies like Philips offer systems like Patient Monitoring to help specialists stay connected with their patients and provide on-time treatment or assign the right practitioner to take care of a particular case. Another example is Dexcom G5 that provides real-time glucose readings for patients with 1 and 2 types of diabetes every five minutes.

This technology helps doctors be aware of the current state of the patients, analyze collected data better, keep all the records, and stay connected 24/7.

How Is Cloud Computing Used in Healthcare?

Cloud computing in healthcare offers different public, private and hybrid platforms that allow easy file-sharing of any size. It also gives an opportunity for hospitals or healthcare organizations to build a secure infrastructure for keeping records. The technology also helps to make consultations easier and more convenient as they can be video- or text-based.

Five Benefits of Cloud Computing in Healthcare

Cloud computing in the healthcare industry brings several benefits that enhance the medical sphere. We have distinguished the top five ones:

• easy and quick accessibility as the data is stored in the cloud and can be reached anytime from any device;
• cost-effective (requires fewer investments than the development of hardware);
• makes data analyzes more efficient;
• facilitates tracking of patient’s state and recovery process;
• scalable — makes it easier for healthcare providers to increase or decrease the space for data storage, depending on the patient’s flow.

Cloud Computing in Healthcare: Examples

Due to its benefits and advantages, cloud computing in healthcare started to be widely used and implemented into IT systems of hospitals and health organizations. For example, IBM has created a cloud-based application, “Collaborative Care Solution,” that helps to accelerate healthcare management.

Companies like Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Dell offer cloud computing platforms that have a high level of security and keep critical data protected. GE Healthcare that runs on Amazon EC2, provides medical imaging tools and diagnostic imaging agents. It transforms collected information from medical devices into valuable patient data and makes it easy to view, process, and share images and patient cases.

What are Cloud Computing Risks in Healthcare?

 Among the top concerns of cloud computing in the healthcare industry are security, privacy, and system downtimes.

Personal patient’s data is tentative and requires a high level of security of a cloud-based platform that will help to protect it from external threats. For example, blockchain technology can be used to ensure security measures and keep stored data protected.

System downtimes can be prevented at the initial stage of app development, knowing possible failures, and having back-up plans on resolving the issues will help organizations to overcome downtimes of the system.

As for privacy matters, healthcare businesses should choose a reliable cloud provider who acts according to the rules and regulations stated by HIPAA of 1996.

How Is AR Being Used in Healthcare?

AR in healthcare becomes more and more applied across the industry. The technology can be used for educational purposes as it allows to have a visual presentation of human body organs.

AR in healthcare makes it possible for doctors to diagnose symptoms more precisely when patients cannot provide detailed information. It also allows doctors to be more illustrative when explaining new treatment or to show patients how drugs will influence their body in an interactive way.

For instance, AccuVein is a vein visualization device that helps professionals find the patient’s veins for blood draws easier. Another example of AR in healthcare is EchoPixel is a medical visualization software platform that depicts human organs in open space. It can be used as a pre-surgery software to simulate and evaluate surgical treatment options.

Innovative Ways to Use VR in Healthcare

Simulated environments have proven to be very helpful both for patients and healthcare professionals. For this reason, VR in healthcare is becoming widely used as it gives access to visual experiences and activities that are impossible in reality, thus helping doctors to provide better treatment to their patients.

VR in healthcare helps with the planning of complicated surgeries, improves doctor skills during professional training, motivates users to exercise, and helps with emotional health treatment.

For example, Neuro Rehab VR develops VR training exercises that suit the individual needs of the patient and make the recovery process more enjoyable and engaging. Another case of VR usage in healthcare is a project by the students of the University of New England. The project aims to show young medical students what it is like to be an older person and help them develop empathy.

AI in Healthcare: Its Benefits

AI in healthcare has great potential in reshaping and enhancing the industry and bringing to the next level. Empowered with human-like processing and analytical abilities, AI  in healthcare can improve the speed of decision-making and make the diagnosis process more accurate, as well as limit the number of mistakes. Benefits of AI in healthcare include task automation, big data analysis, delivery of better healthcare faster.

The future of AI in healthcare means better medical outcomes, advanced treatment, and more patient engagement in the process. For example, PathAI technology helps doctors to reduce errors in cancer diagnoses and develops methods for individualized medical treatment. Enlitic develops tools based on AI to advance medical diagnostics by analyzing unstructured medical records and giving doctors better insights on the patient’s current state and needs.

Chatbots in Healthcare: Alternative to Human Workforce

Chatbots in healthcare are alternatives to hospital administrators, as they can easily collect appointment requests and schedule them. This technology can also be used as a medical consultant and answer questions regarding health conditions.

This is very useful as nowadays, we can find numerous unreliable resources on the Internet and come up with the wrong conclusions, so it’s better to have trustful support that can help patients instantly.

OneRemission is one of the examples of chatbots in the healthcare industry. Its chatbot helps those who fight against cancer by providing the list of diets, exercises, and post-cancer practices. Florence is another great example of chatbots in the healthcare industry or better to say “a personal nurse” who reminds its patients to take pills, helps to find the nearest doctor’s office, and tracks the user’s health state (like body weight, mood, period, etc.).

Data Science in Healthcare: Taking Analysis to the Next Level

Healthcare data science can revolutionize the industry together with the other available tools and solutions. Data science and healthcare are inseparable as medical records contain useful information that can be analyzed and used to prevent diseases, create a better treatment, and help discover new drugs.

Healthcare data science solutions gather information through wearables, monitor, and help to prevent health problems. One of the healthcare data science projects is OASIS that aims to give the scientific community free access to neuroimaging data sets of the brain. One more example is BERG Health; the company analyzes biological samples to reshape the cancer medical market.

Blockchain in Healthcare: Security and Accessibility

Blockchain in healthcare is another trend that helps to enforce the industry with secure platforms and facilitate data access. Blockchain in healthcare today allows patients to use a public-private key and decide who will be able to view their personal medical records or invite a specialist via a system to give consultation regarding health issues.

Blockchain Healthcare Use Cases

Blockchain technology in healthcare has been incorporated into different applications and systems like BurstIQ that help companies to improve the sharing and usage of medical data. Another example of the utilization of blockchain in healthcare is Factom that aims to store digital health records securely.

Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) in the Healthcare Industry

Medical records of the patients are usually stored in forms like paper, audio, or video and contain information like patient ID, diagnoses, treatment, laboratory results, surgeries, etc. Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) software helps to store this data electronically and is superior to paper records as they do not deteriorate, could not be lost, and do not require physical space.

For example, Amrita Medical Solutions serves critical access and rural hospitals. The company’s web-based system provides customized billing and 24/7 EHR tech support. CGI is another of the kind and offers health systems with EHR solutions designed to enable more accurate and faster diagnoses.

In a Nutshell

Healthcare technology trends help to reshape and enhance the industry, and what is more, they bring several advantages both for medical professionals and patients. Although the process is rather slow, still more and more hospitals and health organizations acquire cutting edge technologies and solutions to make their services better.

Combined, the healthcare field and IT industry are showing astonishing results and help thousands of people cope with diseases faster, more comfortably, and more effectively. We experience a significant change that once was only possible in Sci-Fi fiction.

This pandemic shapes new social norms and drives new social rules that humanity should get prepared for starting today. We, at Intellectsoft, empower companies and their workforces with innovation services and approaches to help them survive during these times. Are you and your organization looking for some?

Talk to our experts and find out more about the topic and how your business can start benefiting from it today!

The post 10 Healthcare Technology Trends to Watch in 2021 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

• Technological progress;
• Number of users;
• Number of transactions.

The Year 2020 is a Crash Test for All Assets

The current crisis has made significant ripple effects across industries. The stock market went down 30%, gold and bitcoin plummeted in tandem, even oil traded for a negative price. The market has since shown a surprisingly fast rebound. Notably, cryptocurrencies increased in value substantially, too.

TOP Cryptocurrencies in 2020

Bitcoin

On May 11th, BTC reward for finding a block dropped another 50%, from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC. Since this approach to emission is a key characteristic of the PoW algorithm, there was enough excitement generated around the “halving” event. The price kept climbing, moving the entire market up until the event took place.

However, we are interested in a more meaningful approach to evaluating cryptocurrencies. Thus, we refer to the readiness of solutions for privacy, speed and scalability when mentioning technological progress. According to the Gartner chart, the industry is transitioning to the plateau of productivity through the slope of enlightenment.

Gartner, 2019

Also, today Bitcoin has 33 million addresses with around 1 million daily active users; over 10,000 nodes support the network. While slow in development, Bitcoin is the most popular and supported crypto asset with the potential to store vital information, like sidechain transactions or real estate ownership.

Ethereum

In 2017, there was a promise from ETH founder Vitalik Buterin to solve the scalability problem. Its biggest hope — the Plasma — failed to deliver on promises. Nonetheless, the amount of addresses is steadily increasing towards 100 million, with the majority of blockchain applications running on the Ethereum blockchain.

Additionally, various teams received a grant from the Ethereum Foundation to continue the quest of improving the protocol. For instance, zkSync by Matter Labs is looking to enable zero-knowledge proofs on the second-layer protocol while allowing cut-price fees for transactions. Still, Ethereum has a vast number of platform competitors:

OnChainFX by Messari: platforms as of May 2020

ZCash

ZCash and Monero remain the leading privacy cryptocurrencies. Despite their infamous connection to hackers, project communities thrive: exchanges like Coinbase Pro, Huobi and Hotbit listed these coins; Binance launched ZEC/USDT and XMR/USDT futures, and numerous live streams and updates took place in the last six months.

What’s more important, there is a growing usage of ZEC. People use it for commerce (39,000 locations available), support charities (Zcash has reached over 60,000 ID-verified recipients in Venezuela alone), and even earn this currency via learning (see Coinbase Earn).

Tether (USDT) and other stablecoins

OnChainFX by Messari: stablecoins as of May 2020

De facto Tether (USDT) is the digital dollar. Citizens of developing countries are using this stablecoin amid bitcoin during local crises to protect their savings. Tether has also replaced Ripple (XRP) from the third position in market capitalization. Although posing controversies, stablecoins are critical to crypto-economics as people use them for moving value across borders and trading on exchanges.

Dapps and specialized projects

Cryptomiso, number of commits for the past half-year

Chainlink, 0x, Basic Attention Token, and Augur remain the most active projects in terms of development. Overall, there are over 5,000 projects with 90% of them being neglected. Nevertheless, 16 ICOs ended this year with 39 coming soon, according to ICOdrops.

People had been anticipating a public release of two secretive projects: Telegram Open Network (TON) and Calibra by Telegram and Facebook respectively. Their leaders attracted massive investments and partnerships hoping to use this advantage before the SEC and pretend “too big to fail.” Unfortunately, the SEC sensed a threat to national security in the companies’ stable currencies: GRAM and Libra. As a result, Facebook froze the project and TON’s visionary Pavel Durov publicly accepted TON’s defeat.

Exchanges are a Lucrative Business

In 2017-2019 exchanges popped up en masse. However, frequent hacker attacks or a fraud took many out of business. There are now 270 exchanges and their branches that traded over $100,000 in cryptocurrencies in the last 30 days. They offer between 1 and 826 trading pairs. Only a handful of companies are able to keep their reputation clean and grow their audience globally.

The largest industry players in terms of liquidity volume are the following:

• Bitfinex ($197,948,966 in volume, 24h);
• Coinbase Pro ($464,774,254 in volume, 24h);
• Huobi Global ($1,021,997,618 in volume, 24h);
• Binance ($7,456,040,905 in volume, 24h);
• OKEx ($3,357,245,954 in volume, 24h).

OnChainFX by Messari: exchange tokens as of May 2020

Interestingly, Binance and Coinbase keep stretching their reach far beyond trading. They have launched services like custodial and non-custodial wallets, digital identity, digital securities (DSO) and decentralized exchange (DEX), crypto lending, mining pools, savings and debit card, a startup incubator and venture investment division. Having set security as a number one priority, these titans have cemented a solid foundation for the further development and global expansion.

Today, there are 15+ million Binance users in 180+ countries; the team operates in 40+ countries and keeps expanding a number of its communities. There are 30+ million Coinbase accounts from 102 countries, and it is still a humble number compared to the company’s ambition of reaching 5 billion people. Binance issued own token called BNB and Coinbase has its stablecoin called USDC.

Conclusion

One may have forgotten about the hot topic of the past three years. Indeed, the biggest projects like TON and Libra stumbled upon strong resistance from the financial system. Nonetheless, crypto assets signal their readiness for mass adoption. In spite of the COVID-19 crisis, people didn’t leave the market; quite the opposite — people bought more crypto as it is much easier and accessible than even two years ago. There are plenty of user-friendly interfaces to interact with them, and exchanges have become omnipresent and powerful hubs for it. In fact, it is an inviting opportunity to introduce your crypto solution before the next buzz.

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