The top 5 industries that can benefit from blockchain technology in India

The financial services landscape is the foremost and most obvious beneficiary of blockchain, but there are other sectors where this tech can bring about a transformation.

Blockchain technology has emerged as the talk of town, especially after the recent rollout of the budget. While announcing the Union Budget 2018-19, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated that the government was looking at adopting blockchain tech for disrupting and streamlining various sectors. While the sprawling financial services landscape seems to be the foremost sector to benefit from this revolutionary technology, other industries also seem poised to benefit from it.

These five key industries will immensely benefit from this latest tech disruption:

The healthcare sector

Under Union Budget 2018, the government of India has launched perhaps the largest healthcare scheme, extending a healthcare cover of Rs 5 lakh to up to 10 crore financially poor people and families. As the government is making huge investments in making healthcare available to all, blockchain tech can further help with this imperative initiative. As of yet, the healthcare industry in India lacks a definitive system that is quick in recording the extensive data, in addition to making the same easily and securely shareable. Often, a large amount of time is consumed in obtaining the same data that may otherwise be invested in extending the best of care to the patients.

As blockchain tech stores information securely, in a way that it cannot be changed by any external entity, the technology offers a plausible solution to the healthcare industry.

The data thus stored via blockchain tech can further be linked with a global information network, without compromising on security and also making it available to healthcare providers across the network.

The banking sector

Banking is one amongst the foremost sectors that stands poised to be disrupted with blockchain technology. Since this technology presents the immutable, secured, and encrypted ledger, the same has huge scope of adoption in the banking and financial services sector. It will not only offer accuracy and security, but will also aid the government in expediting financial inclusion.

As per a study jointly released by EY and ASSOCHAM, 19 percent of India’s population is still unbanked. Adoption of blockchain tech can significantly help this lag and, instead, create digital identities for the number of individuals that exist at the bottom of the pyramid and are shunned from accessing banking and financial services. With blockchain tech, the government can establish online identities of individuals and their family associations, and allow individuals to operate bank accounts, transfer money, apply for loans, and more, thereby taking financial inclusion to a whole new level.

Encrypted messaging applications

Since blockchain technology is encrypted and decentralised, it is being widely explored for establishing such platforms to facilitate peer-to-peer and business communications. As of today, the tide of time seems to be in the favour of decentralised and encrypted messaging applications. For instance, Telegram, one such encrypted app for messaging, is finalising adoption of blockchain for various purposes. Other such platforms like Kik and Japan’s Line are tinkering around with blockchain technology and crypto assets.

Given the fastidious security and sanctity of information provided by blockchain tech, we should be looking out for mainstreaming of encrypted messaging apps.

Blockchain tech in voting

We are all well acquainted with the frenzy surrounding EVM tampering. However, adopting blockchain tech in voting can significantly resolve the problem. In fact, the tools offered via blockchain tech are not only helpful in keeping the voter’s information and identity a secret but also present a pragmatic way for casting votes, and keeping a track and count of the same. When adopted, blockchain tech would completely weed out any chances of fraud or foul play, hence ensuring no hiccups in the victory of democracy.

Online advertising

With a rising number of users opting for ad-blocking and DNDs etc, online advertising has taken a dip in the recent years. As advertisers and growth hackers are looking out for other innovative and non-intrusive means of grabbing user attention with the right advertisements, blockchain technology is here to solve the same. For instance, the Brave browser utilises Basic Attention Token, created by the team headed by Brendan Erich, the creator of Javascript. BAT does away with middlemen like Google or Facebook’s ad functionality and allows users to exchange ad space with companies. Users opting in for the services are rewarded with Basic Attention Tokens. Since the system is more consensual and incentivises users, advertisements driven via blockchain may revolutionise online advertising in times to come.

This is merely the beginning of blockchain tech in India.

The time is ripe for a number of startups and enterprises to take the plunge in the domain and aid the government fast-track processes while ensuring optimum security. The world, as we know it, is up for major overhauls and blockchain tech is going to play a pivotal role in the same.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)