Block-what? If you’ve been following the news, there has been increased talk of more and more financial institutions – especially the big banks experimenting with and even implementing “Blockchain” technology in their operations. UBS led a consortium of banks including BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank and Santander to develop a “Utility Settlement Coin” which is a digital cash equivalent of major currencies backed by central banks. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Visa, NASDAQ and numerous others are also looking into it. Locally, Singapore seems to be leading the pack in terms of institutions experimenting with this technology. Hitachi and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi have started testing just last month. IDA, DBS Bank and Standard Chartered have also started developing blockchain-based technology for trade finance; Bank of America, HSBC and IDA have jointly developed Letter of Credit (LoC) transaction system based off blockchain technology; IBM in collaboration with ......