Bank of America CTO Catherine Bessant: We Haven’t Found a Blockchain Use Case in Finance

Published at: May 15, 2019

Catherine Bessant, chief technology officer at Bank of America, admitted that the institution has yet to find blockchain use cases for the financial services sector. Bessant made her comments during an interview with Bloomberg published on May 14.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Bessant said that — while she believes this technology to hold a lot of potential — blockchain is “full of sound and fury, yet to signify something.” Still, she noted that she believes blockchain has practical applications:

“I believe that there are use cases that makes sense today, we have yet to find them at scale in financial services. We’re experimenting heavily, we have more patents than any other financial institution in the blockchain space, but have yet to find something that makes a difference for our clients or our customer.”

The views expressed by Bessant are seemingly in contrast with what she said in March, when she told CNBC that she is privately bearish on blockchain despite the bank holding more patents than any other financial institution.

According to Crunchbase, Bank of America has an estimated revenue of $91.1 billion and is one of the world’s largest financial institutions, serving approximately 51 million consumers and small business relationships.

As Cointelegraph reported earlier this week, British financial software firm Finastra has signed three global banks on its R3 Corda blockchain-based syndicated loans platform.

Tags
Related Posts
Bank of America Wins Patent for Storing Clients’ Crypto Holdings in Enterprise Accounts
The Bank of America (BoA) has won a patent for a system for enterprises to store customers’ crypto deposits, published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) yesterday, Nov. 13. The patent, first filed in mid-June 2014, outlines the background to the invention by stating that “as technology advances, financial transactions involving cryptocurrency have become more common,” and noting: “For some enterprises, it may be desirable to aggregate cryptocurrency deposited by customers in an enterprise account.” The patent filing outlines different interactions between customers’ crypto holdings and an enterprise account, with the latter functioning to securely store (or “aggregate”) …
Adoption / Nov. 14, 2018
Bank of America Reveals New Blockchain Patent Targeting Cash Handling
Bank of America (BoA) wants to patent a system using blockchain technology to improve cash handling, a new application published Dec. 25 confirms. Originally submitted in June 2017, the patent references “banking systems controlled by data bearing records.” “Aspects of the disclosure relate to deploying, configuring, and utilizing cash handling devices to provide dynamic and adaptable operating functions,” its abstract reads. BoA explains there remain communication difficulties in aspects of cash handling duties across banks’ huge operations, and suggests blockchain could help ease these. “Cash handling devices may be used in operating centers and other locations to provide various functions, …
Blockchain / Dec. 25, 2018
Bank Of America Seeks Patent On Blockchain-Based Data Storage System
On April 12, the US Patent and Trademark Office published Bank of America’s application for a patent on a Blockchain-based storage system with automated data authentication. In the document, which was originally filed in October 2016, the author describes a Blockchain-based system for authenticating data and providing secured access of said data to service providers. The patent addresses the problem of data transferring and tracking, which it says can be resolved by means of cryptographic keys in a private Blockchain: “Embodiments of the invention utilize a private Blockchain to store various types of records to be conveyed to the service …
Blockchain / April 12, 2018
Huobi Launches Global DeFi Alliance To Merge East and West
Huobi DeFi Labs has launched a global DeFi alliance, which is set to establish universal protocol standards for the DeFi space and improve communications within the DeFi ecosystem. The alliance will also conduct research on emerging DeFi protocols to help avoid future crises in the community. The alliance’s inaugural members are MakerDAO (MKR), Compound (COM), Nest (NEST), and dYdX (dYdX). In an interview with Cointelegraph, Huobi’s chief investment officer Sharlyn Wu said, “We have to partner with the entire ecosystem. But we want to work with the best of projects out there and make sure our users have access to …
Adoption / Aug. 17, 2020
Bank of America Files Three Patents for Distributed Ledger Technology
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published the details of the three patent applications filed by Bank of America for distributed ledger technology (DLT) or Blockchain technology. Based on the document, the patents were filed in February 2016, and the bank does not seem to be stopping at that as it plans to go big on Blockhain with 20 patents pending since 2016 making it appear like it’s trying to monopolize the industry in the long run. Details of the patent applications The first patent is titled “System for Tracking and Validation of an Entity in a Process Data …
Blockchain / Aug. 1, 2017