scholarly journals Disrupting Business as Usual

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-54
Author(s):  
Alberto La Cava ◽  
Mary Kate Naatus

This article analyzes the research on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology and the alternate banking system, led by giants like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and its potential utility for the millions of migrants living in working around the globe, who send nearly half a trillion dollars through various formal and informal channels to family and friends in their home countries. While research on migrant remittances is well established and has been examined from many different lenses, including economic, political, financial, sociological and entrepreneurial, there are few studies to date that examine how the growing crypto-blockchain channel can impact remittance flows, as a lower cost alternative to MoneyGram and Western Union, which have high transaction costs, and also considering that many migrants do not have formal bank accounts, eliminating formal bank transfers, and also that many migrants hold a vulnerable legal status, and may avoid formal money transfer channels. This article is exploratory in nature and identifies the work that has been done to date on this topic, and identifies potential future research in the area.

Author(s):  
A. Blinov

The article describes current trends in the global financial market development as well as the formation of fundamentally new, innovative financial resources within the peering economy, such as cryptocurrencies. Its capitalization reached almost 1/100 of global gross domestic product. The purpose of the study is to analyze both the status of cryptocurrencies in different countries, including the United States of America, Japan, People’s Republic of China, and the European Union and the peculiarities of the cryptocurrency circulation development, as well as the money functions they are able to perform. The author has formulated the dilemma of this market regulation at the national and global levels. One should consider that the long-term role of crypto units depends upon the resolution of such a dilemma. And there is no unified approach of states and international organizations to the status and prospects of cryptocurrency regulation in our days. This creates a unique field of opportunities for further development of such instruments as the big economic and market movements undulate in big swings that were due to a sequence of actions and reactions by policymakers, investors, business owners, and workers. Given that state control over the emission of fiat money in the world can only be ensured to the extent that they control the banking system, the study provides an analysis of the legal status of such financial engineering products as cryptocurrencies. The author also accents on the three-tier blockchain technology. Finally, the domestic component is thoroughly analyzed, i.e. the regulation field of such instruments in Ukraine. The draft Concept of State Regulation of Cryptocurrency Transactions is also explained. Keywords: cryptocurrency; blockchain; status of crypto units; financial regulation; functions of money.


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 786-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theingi Theingi ◽  
Hla Theingi ◽  
Sharon Purchase

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how institutional mechanisms operate within both formal and informal channels of cross-border remittance. Design/methodology/approach Face-to-face interviews were conducted with Myanmar migrants mostly working in Thailand. Thematic coding was used to analyze field notes and identify themes in channel member perceptions and institutional environmental process. Findings Informal money transfer channels have achieved higher levels of legitimacy when compared to formal channels. Channel legitimacy is a more important attribute than efficiency. Lack of financial infrastructure, such as bank branches and ATM machines particularly in rural or outlying areas of Myanmar, the requirements for formal documentation and language and communication are the major institutional constraints that encourage the development and use of multiple channels in Myanmar. Formal money transfer channels develop with stronger regulative institutional processes, whereas informal money transfer channels develop with stronger cultural-cognitive and normative institutional processes. Research limitations/implications Using convenience sample of remitters mainly from one area of Thailand and other channel members from Yangon, the financial capital of Myanmar, may limit the applicability of the findings, which calls for future research. Practical implications Banks and money transfer offices need to improve legitimacy perception within migrant communities by building stronger networks with local banks and international banks. They could provide Myanmar speaking front-line service personnel and include brochures in the Myanmar language to improve the communication process. The findings and recommendations from this study are also applicable to informal channels and formal financial institutions in other ASEAN countries that are preparing to make investments in Myanmar. Moreover, Myanmar banks should also consider opening branches to cater for Myanmar workers in ASEAN, especially in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Originality value This paper applies institutional theory within channels, investigates the context of a financial channel rather than a product channel, addresses the importance of institutional environmental mechanisms and constraints in influencing channel behavior and is embedded in the situational context of Myanmar, a newly opened South-East Asian economy where little prior research has been conducted.


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 03015
Author(s):  
Nupur Giri ◽  
Dheeraj Singh Jodha ◽  
Yash Goyal ◽  
Akshay Thite ◽  
Abhay Tiwari

This paper focuses on using blockchain technology to enhance efficiency and cost reduction in foreign transactions through the banking system. Blockchain provides crucial features such as immutability of records and decentralization, which is then used to carry out foreign transactions. This process could be a major change in the transactions carried out by removing middle banks during transactions thereby speeding up the process. This paper aims at designing an Ethereum decentralized Banking Application for foreign money transfer using blockchain technology. Smart Contract helps to eliminate middle banks in the process by acting on rules specified in the contract. Every participant needs to abide by these rules which make it trustworthy and maintain the authenticity of the process.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hungyi Chen ◽  
Yuan-Chia Chu ◽  
Feipei Lai

BACKGROUND Time banking is a good mechanism to provide elderly care in community services with members having mutual benefits, besides social welfare and out-of-pocket fee payment mechanisms. With further integration with off-line works, mobile time banking may provide a better way, compared to traditional web access. On the other hand, blockchain technology has been long encountering difficulty in integrating with real-world economies or activities. Development of a mobile time banking system on blockchain (MTBB) may provide a realistic solution for community elderly care. Besides, the tracking mechanism from blockchain technology itself may also help track the elderly care service transaction records in order to measure better Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by United Nations (UN). OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to develop the MTBB, which enables tracking service transaction records in community elderly care through mutual helps. METHODS The MTBB was developed to empower organizations, either Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) organizations, or Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), to issue time tokens of their proprietary token types to the members who participate in the volunteer activities organized by the organizations respectively. In the service activities, members sign in and sign out before and after the services by using a smartphone app, and then get the time tokens afterwards. Members with time tokens can then exchange time tokens for elderly care services using the same smartphone app. MultiChain is used as the blockchain technology stack, as one of its features to support multiple token types is critical. RESULTS Database applications with smartphone apps integrated with MultiChain were developed. The whole set of the database schema was integrated with two smartphone apps, one for members, and the other for organizations, in addition to the two backend operations modules, one for organizations, and the other for managing all organizations and members. The MultiChain wallet was also integrated into the member app, as well as the organization backend modules for keeping track of the service transactions and time tokens. Metadata with the service transaction information is stored in the MultiChain blocks so that the transaction records are immutable and can thus be analyzed in the future. CONCLUSIONS The twelve characteristics of Cahn’s time banking are the guidelines of developing this MTBB with integration of MultiChain blockchain technology for tracking service transaction records. The study also combines the 1-to-1 member service exchange with organizations holding volunteer activities and issuing proprietary time tokens. With the blockchain transaction tracking mechanism, all of the elderly care service records through or within organizations can be tracked and analyzed to align with UN’s five SDGs.


Proceedings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Eduard Alexandru Stoica ◽  
Daria Maria Sitea

Nowadays society is profoundly changed by technology, velocity and productivity. While individuals are not yet prepared for holographic connection with banks or financial institutions, other innovative technologies have been adopted. Lately, a new world has been launched, personalized and adapted to reality. It has emerged and started to govern almost all daily activities due to the five key elements that are foundations of the technology: machine to machine (M2M), internet of things (IoT), big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Competitive innovations are now on the market, helping with the connection between investors and borrowers—notably crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending. Blockchain technology is now enjoying great popularity. Thus, a great part of the focus of this research paper is on Elrond. The outcomes highlight the relevance of technology in digital finance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Ankur Lohachab ◽  
Saurabh Garg ◽  
Byeong Kang ◽  
Muhammad Bilal Amin ◽  
Junmin Lee ◽  
...  

Unprecedented attention towards blockchain technology is serving as a game-changer in fostering the development of blockchain-enabled distinctive frameworks. However, fragmentation unleashed by its underlying concepts hinders different stakeholders from effectively utilizing blockchain-supported services, resulting in the obstruction of its wide-scale adoption. To explore synergies among the isolated frameworks requires comprehensively studying inter-blockchain communication approaches. These approaches broadly come under the umbrella of Blockchain Interoperability (BI) notion, as it can facilitate a novel paradigm of an integrated blockchain ecosystem that connects state-of-the-art disparate blockchains. Currently, there is a lack of studies that comprehensively review BI, which works as a stumbling block in its development. Therefore, this article aims to articulate potential of BI by reviewing it from diverse perspectives. Beginning with a glance of blockchain architecture fundamentals, this article discusses its associated platforms, taxonomy, and consensus mechanisms. Subsequently, it argues about BI’s requirement by exemplifying its potential opportunities and application areas. Concerning BI, an architecture seems to be a missing link. Hence, this article introduces a layered architecture for the effective development of protocols and methods for interoperable blockchains. Furthermore, this article proposes an in-depth BI research taxonomy and provides an insight into the state-of-the-art projects. Finally, it determines possible open challenges and future research in the domain.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5055
Author(s):  
John Sseruyange ◽  
Jeroen Klomp

In this study, we explore whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) can mitigate the adverse macroeconomic consequences of natural disasters. The provision of capital immediately following a natural event is recognized as one of the necessary conditions for a fast economic recovery. However, one concern is that a large majority of natural disasters occur in developing countries where households and the private sector have only limited access to the formal banking system. As an alternative, MFIs may fill up this gap in providing liquidity in the form of microcredit. The existing evidence on how MFIs respond to disaster effects is foremost based on case and micro-level evidence. In turn, the focus of this study is more on the macro impact of MFI activities after a natural disaster. Based on the finding obtained from an OLS-FE model using an unbalanced panel considering more than 80 developing countries and emerging economies, we can conclude that natural disasters harm macroeconomic performance primarily through their effect on the agricultural sector. However, access to lending facilities from MFIs mitigates a large part of this negative effect. Moreover, the extent to which MFIs are able to mitigate these effects depends to a great extent on their nature, i.e., their organizational structure, profitability, legal status, age, and the number of clients they serve.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Amna Qureshi ◽  
David Megías Jiménez

In this paper, we provide a holistic survey of multimedia content protection applications in which blockchain technology is being used. A taxonomy is developed to classify these applications with reference to the technical aspects of blockchain technology, content protection techniques, namely, encryption, digital rights management, digital watermarking and fingerprinting (or transaction tracking), and performance criteria. The study of the literature reveals that there is currently no complete and systematic taxonomy dedicated to blockchain-based copyright protection applications. Moreover, the number of successfully developed blockchain-based content protection systems is very low. This points towards a research gap. To fill this gap, we propose a taxonomy that integrates technical aspects and application knowledge and can guide the researchers towards the development of blockchain-based multimedia copyright protection systems. Furthermore, the paper discusses some technical challenges and outlines future research directions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Jun Huang ◽  
Debiao He ◽  
Mohammad S. Obaidat ◽  
Pandi Vijayakumar ◽  
Min Luo ◽  
...  

Voting is a formal expression of opinion or choice, either positive or negative, made by an individual or a group of individuals. However, conventional voting systems tend to be centralized, which are known to suffer from security and efficiency limitations. Hence, there has been a trend of moving to decentralized voting systems, such as those based on blockchain. The latter is a decentralized digital ledger in a peer-to-peer network, where a copy of the append-only ledger of digitally signed and encrypted transactions is maintained by each participant. Therefore, in this article, we perform a comprehensive review of blockchain-based voting systems and classify them based on a number of features (e.g., the types of blockchain used, the consensus approaches used, and the scale of participants). By systematically analyzing and comparing the different blockchain-based voting systems, we also identify a number of limitations and research opportunities. Hopefully, this survey will provide an in-depth insight into the potential utility of blockchain in voting systems and device future research agenda.


Logistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Abderahman Rejeb ◽  
John G. Keogh ◽  
Suhaiza Zailani ◽  
Horst Treiblmaier ◽  
Karim Rejeb

Blockchain technology has emerged as a promising technology with far-reaching implications for the food industry. The combination of immutability, enhanced visibility, transparency and data integrity provides numerous benefits that improve trust in extended food supply chains (FSCs). Blockchain can enhance traceability, enable more efficient recall and aids in risk reduction of counterfeits and other forms of illicit trade. Moreover, blockchain can enhance the integrity of credence claims such as sustainably sourced, organic or faith-based claims such as kosher or halal by integrating the authoritative source of the claim (e.g., the certification body or certification owner) into the blockchain to verify the claim integrity and reassure business customers and end consumers. Despite the promises and market hype, a comprehensive overview of the potential benefits and challenges of blockchain in FSCs is still missing. To bridge this knowledge gap, we present the findings from a systematic review and bibliometric analysis of sixty-one (61) journal articles and synthesize existing research. The main benefits of blockchain technology in FCSs are improved food traceability, enhanced collaboration, operational efficiencies and streamlined food trading processes. Potential challenges include technical, organizational and regulatory issues. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our research and present several ideas for future research.


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