The age of digital assets is probably moving faster than many had expected and Deloitte’s 2021 Global Blockchain Survey finds that for a change, “banks should embrace their inevitable digital future.”
The report, officially released August 18, argues that “digital assets are disrupting the entire financial market, and every organization and industry that is a customer of the financial services industry,” known by the English acronym as FSI.
The survey finds that financial instruments, from money to stocks and the infrastructure for any type of transaction, “is changing for the better.” The poll was conducted by Linda Pawczuk, Richard Walker and Claudina Castro Tanco between March 24 and April 10, 2021, as a research vehicle to gain insights into overall attitudes and investments in blockchain and digital assets.
The shift to digital assets “is fundamentally changing banking—and changing banking fundamentals. On the positive side, 76% of our survey respondents—and 85% of FSI Pioneers— believe that digital assets will help significantly or moderately reduce risks for organizations or projects. But our survey suggests that this optimism is also tempered by caution.”
Global FSI leaders see digital assets, and their underlying blockchain technologies, as “a strategic priority now and in the near future” and nearly 80% of overall respondents said that digital assets will be “very/somewhat important” to their respective industries in the next 24 months.
The study argues that “participation in the age of digital assets is not an option—it is inevitable. Leaders are left only to decide how and when their organizations should start—and how to use digital assets and the new global financial service infrastructure to their greatest advantage.”
The survey polled a sample of 1,280 senior executives and practitioners in 10 locations: Brazil, China Mainland, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.