In my op-ed for Mint, I write about the potential applications bitcoin could have specifically for emerging markets like India:
India’s banking and financial services industry has incumbents that are inert, sloth-like and highly risk-averse. The banking industry in particular is heavily dominated by public sector undertakings (PSUs). PSU banks still control approximately 80% of all deposits. The industry is rife with corruption and mismanagement, for government banks know that their owner will always bail them out. But this was not always the case—before Indira Gandhi nationalized banks with the stroke of a pen, over 85% of deposits in India were held by private banks. Since the nationalization of banking, all innovation in the industry has come to a standstill.
For 2013-14, 63% of the total number and 35% of the total value of retail transactions was electronic. Average electronic transaction value has nearly tripled in four years, according to data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s banking regulator. But Indian banks cartelize and lobby their regulator to punish consumers with outdated usage practices totally out of tune with the needs of mobile transactions and electronic commerce. Instead of prodding the banks to improve their fraud detection and redressal systems, RBI simply makes it harder for consumers to transact and introduces artificial friction by way of two-factor authentication requirements so that banks get away without having to improve themselves.
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Besides enabling transactions with reduced friction and at lower cost, there are certain applications of the protocol that can enable altogether new use cases. Cryptocurrencies can be used to write “smart contracts”, or contracts that are digitally written and require no third party for enforcement. The value of this application is difficult to overstate in an environment like India, which the World Bank ranks 186 out of 189 countries globally on the enforceability of contracts. Given the slow, dysfunctional judicial system and the paucity of social capital, individuals have historically preferred to do business with people already known to them, or people who are from their own community.
An alternate approach, outside the present broken system, that offers “self-executing”, tamper-proof contracts and does away with the need for third-party intervention for mediation or dispute resolution, could be truly transformational for countries like India by collapsing business risks and transaction costs. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could help dramatically improve contract enforcement.
Consider a bank that gives a secured loan to a person wanting to buy a car, on the assumption that the person will pay for the asset in a fixed number of monthly instalments over a period of time. If the person fails to pay the monthly instalment in any month, the bank reserves the right to take back the car. When a person has reneged on such payments, Indian banks have been known to send strongmen and professional bullies as recovery agents to intimidate and threaten customers and even the relatives of such customers. With an integrated software solution built into the car that verifies whether the monthly instalment has been deposited, a self-executing contract could remotely brick the car, making it inoperable by the consumer should he fail to make the payment. The software “key” to activate the car again would lie with the bank, which can then take possession of the asset easily.
Another game-changing application for cryptocurrencies specific to the Indian context is in the area of remittances. In 2013-14, India received nearly $70 billion in remittances from abroad. The volume of intra-country remittances is estimated to be some Rs.75,000 crore annually. In this digital age, anachronistic and expensive modes of money transfer such as the money order persist. Not only would the cryptocurrency protocol applied to a large market such as remittances be lucrative, it would also be a tremendous service to millions of bottom-of-the-pyramid migrant workers, who have been able to get the latest smartphones for a low price, but are still deprived of cheap, efficient and user-friendly banking and money transfer services.
Besides enabling transactions with reduced friction and at lower cost, there are certain applications of the protocol that can enable altogether new use cases. Cryptocurrencies can be used to write “smart contracts”, or contracts that are digitally written and require no third party for enforcement. The value of this application is difficult to overstate in an environment like India, which the World Bank ranks 186 out of 189 countries globally on the enforceability of contracts. Given the slow, dysfunctional judicial system and the paucity of social capital, individuals have historically preferred to do business with people already known to them, or people who are from their own community. An alternate approach, outside the present broken system, that offers “self-executing”, tamper-proof contracts and does away with the need for third-party intervention for mediation or dispute resolution, could be truly transformational for countries like India by collapsing business risks and transaction costs. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could help dramatically improve contract enforcement. Consider a bank that gives a secured loan to a person wanting to buy a car, on the assumption that the person will pay for the asset in a fixed number of monthly instalments over a period of time. If the person fails to pay the monthly instalment in any month, the bank reserves the right to take back the car. When a person has reneged on such payments, Indian banks have been known to send strongmen and professional bullies as recovery agents to intimidate and threaten customers and even the relatives of such customers. With an integrated software solution built into the car that verifies whether the monthly instalment has been deposited, a self-executing contract could remotely brick the car, making it inoperable by the consumer should he fail to make the payment. The software “key” to activate the car again would lie with the bank, which can then take possession of the asset easily. Another game-changing application for cryptocurrencies specific to the Indian context is in the area of remittances. In 2013-14, India received nearly $70 billion in remittances from abroad. The volume of intra-country remittances is estimated to be some Rs.75,000 crore annually. In this digital age, anachronistic and expensive modes of money transfer such as the money order persist. Not only would the cryptocurrency protocol applied to a large market such as remittances be lucrative, it would also be a tremendous service to millions of bottom-of-the-pyramid migrant workers, who have been able to get the latest smartphones for a low price, but are still deprived of cheap, efficient and user-friendly banking and money transfer services.
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/lv9RU1qcTVEA3MKSCXQsUJ/Cryptocurrencies-can-transform-financial-services.html?utm_source=copy
Besides enabling transactions with reduced friction and at lower cost, there are certain applications of the protocol that can enable altogether new use cases. Cryptocurrencies can be used to write “smart contracts”, or contracts that are digitally written and require no third party for enforcement. The value of this application is difficult to overstate in an environment like India, which the World Bank ranks 186 out of 189 countries globally on the enforceability of contracts. Given the slow, dysfunctional judicial system and the paucity of social capital, individuals have historically preferred to do business with people already known to them, or people who are from their own community. An alternate approach, outside the present broken system, that offers “self-executing”, tamper-proof contracts and does away with the need for third-party intervention for mediation or dispute resolution, could be truly transformational for countries like India by collapsing business risks and transaction costs. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could help dramatically improve contract enforcement. Consider a bank that gives a secured loan to a person wanting to buy a car, on the assumption that the person will pay for the asset in a fixed number of monthly instalments over a period of time. If the person fails to pay the monthly instalment in any month, the bank reserves the right to take back the car. When a person has reneged on such payments, Indian banks have been known to send strongmen and professional bullies as recovery agents to intimidate and threaten customers and even the relatives of such customers. With an integrated software solution built into the car that verifies whether the monthly instalment has been deposited, a self-executing contract could remotely brick the car, making it inoperable by the consumer should he fail to make the payment. The software “key” to activate the car again would lie with the bank, which can then take possession of the asset easily. Another game-changing application for cryptocurrencies specific to the Indian context is in the area of remittances. In 2013-14, India received nearly $70 billion in remittances from abroad. The volume of intra-country remittances is estimated to be some Rs.75,000 crore annually. In this digital age, anachronistic and expensive modes of money transfer such as the money order persist. Not only would the cryptocurrency protocol applied to a large market such as remittances be lucrative, it would also be a tremendous service to millions of bottom-of-the-pyramid migrant workers, who have been able to get the latest smartphones for a low price, but are still deprived of cheap, efficient and user-friendly banking and money transfer services.
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/lv9RU1qcTVEA3MKSCXQsUJ/Cryptocurrencies-can-transform-financial-services.html?utm_source=copy
Besides enabling transactions with reduced friction and at lower cost, there are certain applications of the protocol that can enable altogether new use cases. Cryptocurrencies can be used to write “smart contracts”, or contracts that are digitally written and require no third party for enforcement. The value of this application is difficult to overstate in an environment like India, which the World Bank ranks 186 out of 189 countries globally on the enforceability of contracts. Given the slow, dysfunctional judicial system and the paucity of social capital, individuals have historically preferred to do business with people already known to them, or people who are from their own community. An alternate approach, outside the present broken system, that offers “self-executing”, tamper-proof contracts and does away with the need for third-party intervention for mediation or dispute resolution, could be truly transformational for countries like India by collapsing business risks and transaction costs. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could help dramatically improve contract enforcement. Consider a bank that gives a secured loan to a person wanting to buy a car, on the assumption that the person will pay for the asset in a fixed number of monthly instalments over a period of time. If the person fails to pay the monthly instalment in any month, the bank reserves the right to take back the car. When a person has reneged on such payments, Indian banks have been known to send strongmen and professional bullies as recovery agents to intimidate and threaten customers and even the relatives of such customers. With an integrated software solution built into the car that verifies whether the monthly instalment has been deposited, a self-executing contract could remotely brick the car, making it inoperable by the consumer should he fail to make the payment. The software “key” to activate the car again would lie with the bank, which can then take possession of the asset easily. Another game-changing application for cryptocurrencies specific to the Indian context is in the area of remittances. In 2013-14, India received nearly $70 billion in remittances from abroad. The volume of intra-country remittances is estimated to be some Rs.75,000 crore annually. In this digital age, anachronistic and expensive modes of money transfer such as the money order persist. Not only would the cryptocurrency protocol applied to a large market such as remittances be lucrative, it would also be a tremendous service to millions of bottom-of-the-pyramid migrant workers, who have been able to get the latest smartphones for a low price, but are still deprived of cheap, efficient and user-friendly banking and money transfer services.
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/lv9RU1qcTVEA3MKSCXQsUJ/Cryptocurrencies-can-transform-financial-services.html?utm_source=copy