Blockchain, the technology that powers the cryptocurrency is now being implemented by numerous industries. Retail and finance are the sectors where transparency and tracking features of the blockchain can be of great use as they can eliminate the middle-men, help to make a robust framework injecting trust between the entities.

In the Retail

Retail sector currently faces the major issue of validation of goods provenance. All goods received at the end-point of the supply chain must have been validated and blockchain seems to be the solution to it. Data gathered in real-time from IoT devices in the supply chain can be stored in the immutable ledger of the blockchain disabling the chances of tampering. The ledger keeps track of all data activities automatically. Such a system of IoT devices and blockchain will be capable of proving the validation of goods provenance.

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Moreover, blockchain use can be extended to other processes of the sector such as payments, shipment tracking, and customer data privacy. The efficiency of these processes can be enhanced by optimizing the distributed ledger. The retail sector will be able to maintain good customer data privacy with the distributed ledger as there will be no middle-men and customers will also have control over their data.

In the Finance

The advent of cryptocurrency is undoubtedly affecting the finance industry. Though crypto being the future of finance still intuitional investors, family offices, and hedge funds have not migrated towards crypto because of lack of clarity in regulations and volatility of cryptocurrencies. The cross-border transaction, for example, is a challenge for financial institutions; they strive to forge an infrastructure that has agility, transparency, accountability and complies with the regulations automatically.  The distributed ledger technology withholds all these properties can prove to be the panacea for cross border transactions.

Automated claim settlement and payments will soon become the ground reality with smart contracts that will automate claims and payments with algorithms. 

Blockchain companies:  BLOQ, Cognive, Global Debt Registry