Blockchain can fix India’s dysfunctional insurance scheme, says WEF

Published at: Dec. 9, 2020

Blockchain technology in general, and smart contracts in particular, can “unlock the hidden values of legacy digital systems,” according to a report co-authored by representatives of the World Economic Forum and Chainlink. To understand how, look no further than India’s Crop Insurance Scheme. 

In a 40-page white paper released on Wednesday, the Geneva-based organization promotes the importance of interoperability between legacy systems and distributed ledger technologies – but only for specific use cases that are suitable for blockchains.

“Once readers have already established that blockchain is desirable for their specific use case and business processes, this paper aims to spotlight the role of blockchain, smart contracts and oracles in accelerating the automation of such processes."

Although the paper promotes highly technical and abstract solutions for enhancing interoperability between blockchains and legacy systems — which it calls the “interoperability bridge” — it provides a tangible example in the form of India’s Crop Insurance Scheme, which was devised in 2016 as a way to provide insurance coverage and financial support to farmers affected by natural disasters.

Issues ranging from transparency and accountability to corruption and information security were all raised by agencies involved in implementing the scheme. The white paper identifies how blockchain-based smart contracts and oracle systems could overcome these challenges.

The paper reads:

"The crop insurance programme serves as an apt case to highlight the current deficiencies most legacy systems face when dealing with multiparty business processes.”

It continues:

“If an organization’s objective is to automate business processes in a decentralized and disintermediated manner for various reasons, then a blockchain‑based architecture becomes imperative.

Indian regulators have had mixed feelings about cryptocurrencies, but they’ve been far more receptive to blockchain technology. Earlier this year, the National Institution for Transforming India, a government entity, released a report that explores the role of blockchain in improving business, social and governance outcomes in the country.

Update: 12/9/20 18:10 ET: This article has been updated to note the co-authors of the report.

Tags
Blockchain
Dlt
India
World Economic Forum
Related Posts
World Economic Forum Looks to Blockchain to Restart Global Economy
The World Economic Forum published a report looking at how the deployment of blockchain-based solutions can address the supply chain inefficiencies and failures that have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside the report, the WEF has released a blockchain deployment toolkit intended to assist government and businesses in adapting their supply chains to the current economic climate and to “accelerate an economic rebound post-COVID-19.” World Economic Forums advocates DLT to restart the economy The report, published April 28, asserts that the resilience of private and public supply chains have been tested amid the coronavirus outbreak — citing the supply …
Adoption / April 28, 2020
Tracing Fishy Risks With Blockchain Tech Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic
COVID-19 is the most devastating plague to ravage humankind this century. Every day, the number of patients infected with the coronavirus is rising globally and taking the highest human toll in the United States. The highly infectious virus was first contracted in November 2019 in Wuhan, the capital city of China’s Hubei province, through horseshoe bat-to-human contact at the Huanan seafood market. Many of the initial COVID-19 patients were either stall owners, market employees or regular visitors of the market, who rapidly developed a severe respiratory illness. Despite the market being shut down on Jan. 1, 2020, the virus has …
Blockchain / Aug. 4, 2020
India’s Kerala Blockchain Academy Partners with R3 for Dev Education
The Kerala Blockchain Academy (KBA), a government initiative under the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, is now a general partner of R3. Local news outlet The Economic Times reported on Aug. 27 that New York-based enterprise blockchain firm R3 chose the KBA as a general partner. According to the article’s author, the academy already designed a developer certification program on the firm’s Corda blockchain, meant for banking and technology professionals. Governmental blockchain education Per the report, KBA is the first government institution in India which offers a Corda blockchain development program. Moreover, the initiative also provides in-person training …
Blockchain / Aug. 28, 2019
Indian Banks Consider Promoting Blockchain Tech Use for Payments
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is considering implementing blockchain technology to increase the strength of digital transactions, Indian business magazine Business Today reports on April 14. The initiative of ten banks, under the aegis of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), aims to improve the NPCI by implementing distributed ledger technology, the publication underlines. The NPCI, an umbrella organization that operates retail payments and settlement systems in India and includes 56 national banks as stakeholders, was set up with the guidance and support of the Reserve Bank of India and the IBA. The NPCI will focus on developing blockchain …
Adoption / April 14, 2019
Indian central securities depository to back up its monitoring of bonds by blockchain
The National Securities Depository (NSDL), India’s central securities depository based in Mumbai, launched blockchain-based security and covenant monitoring platform. NSDL officially launched the distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform on Saturday during its 25th-anniversary presentation, alongside the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The platform is expected to strengthen the monitoring of security and governance in the corporate bonds market to bring “further discipline and transparency to the market.” SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch underscored the blockchain’s transparency as the key reason for the technology’s popularity but made a reservation regarding its current cost-effectiveness, remarkin that the anonymity feature remains …
Adoption / May 9, 2022