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Comment by picardo | Hacker News Reader

Banking systems are complex. You can't build a single centralized system that works for everyone, let alone get everyone to trust each other on the system. The solution needs to be decentralized, trustworthy and provide built-in checks for integrity.

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Would you say that we have a "a single centralized system that works for everyone" in banking now? It seems more like a patchwork of a lot of systems to me.

No, we don't. That's why it's slow and expensive to trade across borders, especially if the counterparties have never done business before. It's an arduous process of proving creditworthiness through letters of credit. You often see document fraud where someone can tamper with a letter of credit, which is hard to detect.

> That's why it's slow and expensive to trade across borders, ... document fraud

Would you say that blockchains make this faster, cheaper and less prone to fraud?

Sure. Here is a story from 4 years ago. [1] Barclays says blockchain cut this process from 10 days to 4 hours.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-banks-barclays-blockchain...

I don't see a lot of news on that since 2016. Are they still using it?

Well, I'd rather provide a letter than put all my transactions in public eye.

It's not in the public eye. The blockchain is only accessible to trusted parties, like banks and merchant representatives.

Who manages access to the blockchain, and how do you trust them?

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