Experts sayย the technology mayย become a game changer in the field of decades-old banking systems
Despite being the center-point ofย vast majority of the worldโs wealth, banks arenโt exactly hotbeds of cutting-edge tech, often relying on decades-old systems for everyday tasks.ย Paul Taylor, aย former Google engineer, whose speech recognition software is used in more than a billion Android smartphones are going to change with a modern, fully integrated, blockchain-based banking operating system called Vault OS.
The main job of Vault OS is to perform the core function of a bank: essentially, maintaining a huge ledger.ย Each instance of the OS will run its own private blockchain and cryptographic ledger, hosted as a service by ThoughtMachine.ย The ledger is tamper-proof and transparent, it means that transactions can be processed without the need for third-party verification.
โMost of the banks are using systems that were written in the 80s and 90s, and they just are not ready for the security-conscious internet app age at all,โ Taylor told Reuters. โWhat the blockchain does is provide a very secure way of storing transactions.โ
Taylor said, major high-street banks were spending around a billion pounds ($1.3 billion) a year on computer technology, much of which he said was being used for propping up the current “legacy” systems rather than on any innovative technology.ย The system negates the need for costly in-house data centres, as it uses cloud-based systems, which banks can use on a โpay-as-you-goโ basis, which means that there is no single point of failure.
The start-up has been working with about ten banks, Taylor said, at least one of which would be starting a trial using the new system in August. He expects the system to be up-and-running within about a year.