Expert shortage hampers Japanese financials in blockchain race

By August 17, 2016Bitcoin Business

Hard disks are pictured inside a server room at a company in Bangkok, Thailand, April 5, 2016. Japanese financial firms risk falling behind on the world stage as efforts to adopt blockchain technology that promises to save billions of dollars in backroom processing and revolutionize the finance industry are hamstrung by a dearth of specialists. Banks, brokerages and insurers in global financial centers are investing in the computer code that underlies the bitcoin virtual currency. They hope to draw on its ability to share vast amounts of sensitive data securely and in real-time, and eliminate stages of transactions like third-party verification. But blockchain is so new that financial institutions are often forced to seek engineers and developers, not from the tech giants with which they have long collaborated, but among startup companies – the traditional incubators of embryonic technology. In Japan, however, there are relatively few startups in a country that often ranks low for entrepreneurship. Consequently, blockchain talent is scarce, and finance houses risk being left behind as global peers pass blockchain savings on to clients. "At the moment, there just aren’t any technicians in Japan," said Chief Executive Hiroshi Shimo of Consensus Base, hired by Japan’s second-biggest brokerage by revenue, Daiwa Securities Group Inc, to develop a blockchain application. "There was nobody who could do it inside the company or at the big IT firms," said Shimo, the sole full-time employee in the company he set up last year. LEFT BEHIND Consultancy Accenture reckons the efficiency of blockchain will cut annual costs in the financial industry by more than $20 billion by 2021. The technology, for instance, could simplify the interaction between buyers, brokers and clearing houses that currently make equities trades take up to three days to settle. The prospect has prompted financial institutions since last […]

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