The topic of Traditional Banking, Digital Banking and Blockchain-Baded Banking (Cryptocurrency) falls under the purview of FinTech, which is concerned with the impact and influence of technology in enhancing financial operations. Accordingly, its goal "is to automate, speed up, or offer new alternatives to existing practices."
With the advent of digital banking in Nigeria, they've been lots of improvements in the way and manner banking activities have been conducted. By banking activities, I mean activities involving Savings, Withdrawal, Transferring and receiving currencies. It also cuts across creating an account, taking loans, shares, and buying other currencies among others.
Thus, in this piece, I'll be speaking about three different models which I've experienced in Nigeria, as well as their advantages and disadvantages over previous models.
By Traditional Banking, I mean the process of carrying out banking related matters which involves an individual's physical presence in a banking hall or room to either open an account, deposit, withdraw money, transfer or take loans. This model requires the physical presence and signature of the owner of the account or signatory to the account.
This method was obviously slow, and requires that people come into the banking hall, no matter how long the queue is.
With the advent of the digitalisation of the Banking system, there was a significant improvement in the operations of the banks. Our physical presence in the banking hall was no longer necessary or required to effect any transaction from our account. Thus, from the comfort of our homes, we can use our mobile phones to send money, receive money, and take loans, among others.
The Automated Teller Machine (ATM) also came onboard and completely eased the stress of going to the banks to line up in a long queue just to withdraw money. With the ATM, people can easily go to where ever these ATM stands are located to withdraw or deposit cash.
However, only few of these ATM stands were located in Rural communities, and many Urban communities also had long queue in the ATM stands. Thus, the Point Of Sale (POS) operators came in to relieve the burden, such that in almost every 2 streets in Nigeria, there is, at least, a POS operator who does local withdrawal, deposit and transfer of cash. Thus, this makes banking operations a lot more easier and faster in Nigeria.
Amidst the obvious positive aspects of the digital banking, it is important to note that this method isn't 100% effective as sometimes Internet connectivity and network tend to delay or hold the transactions we make.
By Blockchain-Based Banking, I mean Cryptocurrency transactions. Cryptocurrency is also under the category of digital banking, however, it is a decentralized and peer-to-peer form of banking done using encrypted algorithms. Put differently, there is no central body in charge of regulating it, and it extends beyond countries.
It is based on Blockchain technology, and by this I refer to an automated ledger, which its transactions cannot be modified once recorded.
With cryptocurrency, transactions between different countries and continents become fast, and feeless. It also cuts the wait time of 3-7 business days as it is with traditional method of transactions. Similarly, as it is Blockchain-Based, the transactions are public, transparent and cannot be modified. It also reduces the cost of middle men in the transactions.
In as much as it has its positive sides, it also has its negative sides one of which is that Cryptocurrency is not a legal tender in most countries, it is not a debt security and it is volatile. Its volatility can also be a positive side when you buy low, and sell high.
Let me hear what you think in the comment section.
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