Blockchain in Banking and Finance: Where It Works and Where It Does Not
Banking runs on two properties that a ledger deliberately removes The first is settlement finality that holds in law, not only in code. The second is the ability to undo a mistake. Both are absent from a blockchain by design, and both are non-negotiable for a regulated institution. So every bank deployment reintroduces them, and reintroducing them means reintroducing an authority with powers to intervene, which is precisely what the architecture was meant to remove. Not fatal. Plenty of worthwhile systems sit at that compromise. But it changes what you are building, and it is better said on day one than found at legal review. Finality on a chain is not finality in law Settlement finality in conventional systems is generally statutory. Designated systems benefit from protections making settled transfers legally irreversible even through an insolvency, which is what allows institutions to treat them as done. A transfer confirmed on a chain resembles this technically and has a legal...