Above: Ajmal Nazir, Glenn McKnight, Randall DeFrietas, Peter George and Nigel Romano, panelists at the TTIGF discussion. Photo by Mark Lyndersay.

Published in NewsdayTT’s Business Day for February 01, 2018.

Nigel Romano, CEO of JMMB was clear in his support of Blockchain as a leveraging technology for financial institutions.

“Blockchain is the Internet of the 21st century,” he said early in the discussion of the digital ledger system at the 2018 TTIGF.

“It is the Internet of value. It has the potential to cut out the intermediaries, including the banks. It has the potential to make transactions faster and cheaper with robust trust. It has the potential to speed up commerce and increase GDP.”

Of BitCoin and Blockchain technology, Peter George, chairman of BITT said, “You are now either a believer, speculator or an investor. Before, you were either a believer or a lunatic.”

The Blockchain is a peer to peer computer based system which maintains an open and transparent ledger of transactions. Data lodged in any single node, or block in the system cannot be changed without the collusion or agreement of a majority of the participating blocks.

George is definitely a believer in the Blockchain as a system that eliminates the need for verification systems and introduces a technology that operates based on transparency and predictability without a need for trust in an individual or institution.

The BITT chairman is working on a pilot central bank to central bank settlement agreement between unnamed islands that would form the test bed for a proposed regional currency.

George pointed to projects that are using the Blockchain to drive significant advancements in procurement and governance, including the Future Gov project and the well documented transformation of Estonia into a digital powerhouse.

“Inefficiency breeds corruption, and corruption encourages inefficiency. Making those changes will have to come from us, the block chain can facilitate it, but doing it will come from us.”