International Remittances and Blockchain Technology
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Remittances are an important component of the economic livelihood of migrants and their families. Recently, blockchain-based attempts to improve remittances have garnered a great deal of attention. Specifically, proponents believe blockchain is uniquely suited to overhauling and streamlining the decades old correspondent banking system, the “pipes” through which most international money flows through. However, on closer investigation, the picture is much more complicated. Firstly, while being careful to generalize given the heterogeneity of remittance corridors, the literature challenges the commonly cited view amongst blockchain proponents that remittance markets are dysfunctional and costs are exorbitantly high. Secondly, it appears that blockchain initiatives in the cross-border payment space only address two of the four key cost drivers in the remittance business: the inefficient correspondent banking system and lack of market competition in certain corridors. But blockchain does not address other cost drivers such as regulation and agent network infrastructure. Thirdly, the two models of blockchain startups impacting the remittance space are still in the early stages of development, with mixed evidence on their success. These nascent efforts in the cross-border payments space have also revealed the difficulty of realizing blockchain’s myriad benefits in a theoretical sense – security, speed, de-centralization, lower costs – when the technology is put into a real world operating environment.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | [ca. January 31, 2018] |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Wu, Ed |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Krishnamurthy, Arvind |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Public Policy Program |
Subjects
| Subject | Stanford University |
|---|---|
| Subject | Humanities and Sciences |
| Subject | Public Policy Program |
| Subject | Remittances |
| Subject | Blockchain |
| Subject | Bitcoin |
| Subject | Migrants |
| Subject | Correspondent Banking |
| Subject | Cross Border Transfers |
| Subject | Migrants |
| Subject | Moneygram |
| Subject | Ripple |
| Subject | Western Union |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
Collection
Stanford University, Public Policy Program, Masters Theses and Practicum Projects
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- Contact
- ed.sh.wu@gmail.com
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