Blocks with blockchain in markets

The majority of Asia Pacific's asset owners and managers expect blockchain to be widely adopted in the industry in the next five years, while only a third of those have initiatives in place to support it, according to State Street Corporation.

Blockchain is a distributed digital ledger of transactions that continuously grows its list of data records, and although State Street found Australian asset owners and managers were optimistic about it, half said it would significantly disrupt financial markets.

That differed to Japan, as only 23 per cent said it would disrupt markets. In Singapore 37 per cent said it would affect markets, while in Hong Kong 40 per cent said it would hamper markets. However, 43 per cent said they did not know enough about blockchain, while 50 per cent said they needed more education about it.

State Street's head of emerging technologies, Hu Liang, said the majority of institutional investors were well aware that blockchain would become embedded into their everyday lives in the near future.

But, there was clearly uncertainty around how to best plan for the emerging technology and there needed to be more education about it, State Street said.

The data was based on a State Street survey, conducted by Oxford Economics. They surveyed 48 asset managers and 42 asset owners which included asset management firms, private pension funds, retirement funds, public pensions and retirement funds.