Dubai has announced the plans to become the first global city that operates all transactions with the help of blockchain technology.
Ahmad Al Mulla, the city’s Chief Information Officer said: “Dubai is a frontrunner in adopting the latest technology and has set a goal to become the world’s first government to execute all implementable transactions on the blockchain by 2020. The government initiatives in this direction present tremendous business opportunities for the private sector in the UAE.”
In its urge to lead the world in terms of fintech, Dubai attracted both local and global specialists in the field of blockchain with Dan Frankel becoming the Blockchain City Adviser to Dubai at ConsenSys.
According to the estimates, thanks to the adoption of new financial technologies, transaction costs can be cut by 75%, or up to $20 billion a year by 2020. Early adopters are believed to have a competitive advantage.
Not only financial services will rely on the cutting-edge technology. Dubai International Airport will adopt blockchain passport verification and get rid of manual passport verification. Emirates NBD, an Emirates-based investment bank, is believed to adopt the distributed ledger in order to avoid fraud and improve security.
