Money20/20 USA 2023 saw the leading lights of financial services come together in Las Vegas to connect and offer key insights into the future of fintech.

We spoke to Lata Varghese, Managing Director, Global Blockchain and Digital Assets Leader for Protiviti, on the current barriers to blockchain adoption for global enterprises and how it can be better embraced.

Proitiviti: Embracing blockchain technology

The potential of blockchain technology is seemingly boundless – a disruptive and transformative tool that financial services companies can use to modernise their operations.

However, blockchain adoption is far from ubiquitous. As Varghese notes, this is due to challenges in onboarding the technology in the right way.

“Before blockchain can be properly implemented, there are many other processes that need to catch up to scale the technology for real enterprise use,” she says.

“This includes a lot more than just the technology, the app, and deciding which protocol you build on. There are so many considerations when it comes to scaling enterprise blockchain solutions.

“There is a lot of hard work enterprises need to undertake around operationalising a network, setting up proper guardrails for enterprises, and collaborating on a blockchain network to feel comfortable securing data and customer information.

“I think we’re still in the process of completing all that hard work before we can see blockchain truly start to scale.

“The barriers to blockchain adoption are there, but it’s the nature of the beast. It’s about completing the hard work to get to a place where blockchain can start to scale.

“It’s not just about the technology, it’s about the business value and what enterprises can get for it.”

As such, for Varghese, to embrace blockchain is to understand its value to a particular business and the efficiences it can create.

“Enterprises should ask: What problems can we truly solve uniquely with this technology stack? What does it allow us to do that we couldn’t do in the past?

“They should also ask how blockchain can enable them to do things more securely, where the benefits of going through the process of setting up a new infrastructure are evident and significant.

“Blockchain technology is transformation at the core of a business. So it’s not easy to implement and no enterprise is going to be comfortable adopting it without the right guardrails in place.

“So, for now, I would say let’s not talk so much about the technology but let’s talk about the other elements needed to secure the blockchain network, the infrastructure, and implementation processes.

“Blockchain requires you to have a whole new set of processes to be able to take advantage, and it is now in the realm of enterprises to see how they can best take advantage of this technology.”