How Blockchain can impact financial services - The overview, challenges and recommendations from expert interviewees

Technol Forecast Soc Change. 2020 Sep:158:120166. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120166. Epub 2020 Jun 21.

Abstract

FinTech (Financial Technology) and Blockchain are prevalent topics among technology leaders in finance today. This article describes the impact and revolution of FinTech and Blockchain in the financial industry and demonstrates the main characteristics of such technology. Then, we present three critical challenges as well as three ethical issues about using Blockchain technology. Next, we discuss the development of Blockchain for the financial sector. In addition, we describe the real motivations for banks to explore Blockchain, and problems they face. In order to have a good understanding of the industry, a qualitative method was adopted, and sixteen experts were interviewed. It was identified that knowledge hiding in Blockchain was common and the rationale behind was analyzed using the TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior) approach. The analysis results suggested that knowledge hiding was due to affective, behavioral and cognitive evaluations. The interviewees also provided several recommendations and success factors to overcome current issues in Blockchain adoption. Therefore, four important propositions have been developed. Finally, this article suggests how financial services should respond to this new technology and how to manage knowledge sharing in a more structured way. This article contributes to the literature related to the current entrepreneurial finance landscape for Blockchain.

Keywords: Blockchain; Blockchain adoption; Ethical challenges; Ethics; Financial industry; Recommendation for Blockchain adoption.