Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion
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International Telecommunication Union ITU-T FG-DFS TELECOMMUNICATION STANDARDIZATION SECTOR OF ITU (03/2017) ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion Focus Group Technical Report 2 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion FOREWORD The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the United Nations specialized agency in the field of telecommunications, information and communication technologies (ICTs). The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is a permanent organ of ITU. ITU-T is responsible for studying technical, operating and tariff questions and issuing Recommendations on them with a view to standardizing telecommunications on a worldwide basis. The procedures for establishment of focus groups are defined in Recommendation ITU-T A.7. TSAG set up the ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services (FG DFS) at its meeting in June 2014. TSAG is the parent group of FG DFS. Deliverables of focus groups can take the form of technical reports, specifications, etc., and aim to provide material for consideration by the parent group in its standardization activities. Deliverables of focus groups are not ITU-T Recommendations. ITU 2017 This work is licensed to the public through a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). For more information visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ . 3 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion 4 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion About this report This technical report was written by Leon Perlman, PhD. The author would like to thank members of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), TIC, WG, and others for their considered and constructive comments on drafts of this study. In particular, Paul Makin of Consult Hyperion UK, Prof Kevin Butler of the University of Florida, Albert Lewis of the US Federal Communications Commission, Vijay Mauree of ITU, Prof Emin Gün Sirer of Cornell University, Tim Swanson of R3, Adrian Hope-Bailie of Ripple, and Ariadne Plaitakis of Mondato. All citation links were checked for validity in February 2017. If you would like to provide any additional information, please contact Vijay Mauree at [email protected] 5 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion Table of contents Executive summary .................................................................................................................. 8 Approach .................................................................................................................................. 8 List of Acronyms .................................................................................................................... 10 1 Introduction to Distributed ledger technology (DLT) ................................................ 11 1.1 What is a DLT? ............................................................................................................ 11 1.2 The concepts of blockchains and ‘distributed ledgers’ ................................................ 11 1.3 Distributed ledger constructs ....................................................................................... 13 2 DLT designs .................................................................................................................... 16 2.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Bitcoin .......................................................................................................................... 16 2.3 Ripple ........................................................................................................................... 16 2.4 Ethereum ...................................................................................................................... 17 2.5 Corda ............................................................................................................................ 17 2.6 Microsoft Azure ........................................................................................................... 18 3 Key uses of DLTs ........................................................................................................... 18 3.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 18 3.2 Application of DLTs .................................................................................................... 18 4 Smart contracts .............................................................................................................. 19 4.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 19 4.2 Nature of smart contracts ............................................................................................. 19 4.3 Opportunities and challenges with smart contracts ..................................................... 20 5 Challenges in implementation of DLTs........................................................................ 21 5.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 21 5.2 Privacy and confidentiality of data .............................................................................. 21 5.3 Security of DLTs.......................................................................................................... 23 5.4 Fragmentation in DLTs ................................................................................................ 24 5.5 Validity of records ....................................................................................................... 25 5.6 Speed of processing ..................................................................................................... 26 6 Policy, regulatory, and legal issues relating to DLTs ................................................. 26 6.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 26 6.2 Regulatory and policy responses to DLT ..................................................................... 26 6 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion 6.3 Legal and regulatory issues with the use of DLTs ....................................................... 28 7 Application of blockchain/DLT technology to financial inclusion ............................ 28 7.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 28 7.2 C&S.............................................................................................................................. 29 7.3 Remittances .................................................................................................................. 29 7.4 Digital identities ........................................................................................................... 30 7.5 Property registers ......................................................................................................... 31 7.6 Smart contracts............................................................................................................. 31 8 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 32 9 Recommendations .......................................................................................................... 33 Annex A How a blockchain operates ................................................................................... 34 7 ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services: Distributed Ledger Technologies and Financial Inclusion Executive summary Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is a new type of secure database or ledger for keeping track of who owns a financial, physical, or electronic asset, but without the need for a centralized controller of this data. Instead, the data is shared in a peer-to-peer manner across multiple sites, countries, or institutions. DLT has the potential to speed up and reduce the cost of transactions, give individuals more control over their personal data, reduce or remove the need for costly intermediaries, provide secure ‘smart’ legal contracts that execute without user intervention, bolster data security by providing almost real-time evidence of tampering, and revolutionize regulatory compliance. A prime example of DLT is called blockchain technology. All blockchains operate by taking a number of records and putting them in a block and then chaining that block to the next block using a cryptographic signature. While the data (blocks) are stored one after the other in a continuous ledger, they can only be added when the participants reach a quorum (consensus) over their validity. Each record is time/date stamped and provided with a unique cryptographic signature, which is designed to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the ledger. This distributed design eliminates the need for a central authority or intermediary to process, validate, or authenticate transactions