The integration of technology into finance is transforming the way we manage wealth. These days, we use our phones to run our finances – everything from purchases to signing off accounts using digital signatures. AI – Artificial Intelligence – is only going to enhance these capabilities, providing data-driven personalised strategies and real-time analytics which will enable investors to make smarter, faster financial decisions while mitigating risks more effectively.
One of the most promising innovations is blockchain – which has the capacity to provide a transparent, secure method for tracking asset ownership and financial transactions, ensuring clarity and accountability in wealth management. Cryptocurrencies are based on blockchain technologies – and the proponents of these cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, would argue that this enables them to be decentralised – effectively taking them out of the scope of the traditional Central Banks.
The Central Banks have a decision to make – the decentralised nature of these currencies make them the perfect way to transfer large sums of money – particularly useful if you are money laundering or running a drug running operation. If they can regulate them then this would make it much harder for these nefarious activities to take place – and would enable them to track the flow of money round the world – but that would involve talking down the existing cryptocurrencies and replacing them with authorised versions – exactly the opposite of what their proponents are trying to do.
The arrival of Donald Trump in the White House – who has suddenly become a convert to cryptocurrencies after a large slug of money was handed to his campaign and with the promise of the US building up a large strategic reserve of cryptocurrency, is likely to advance the discussion one way or another.
However, the underlying benefits of blockchain technology are undoubted, and they will become more and more prevalent in the race to secure the financial world against the influx of fraud, scammers and even rogue states who are attempting to bring the new world order down.
