World Bank President Talks Blockchain’s Huge Potential At International Monetary Fund (IMF) Event

World Bank's Jim Yong Kim Talks Blockchain's ‘Huge Potential' at IMF Event

At a news conference during the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Bali, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said that Blockchain technology has huge potential. He went on to say that embracing this technology is essential. He said:

“We at the World Bank Group have had to admit that we’re not keeping up with the latest developments and we’re not doing it in a way that would help our clients take advantage of the great things that are coming out,”

In essence, he said that the World Bank hasn't taken the Blockchain technology seriously till now.

He further clarified his position by saying:

“We think distributed ledger [technology] has real potential and we issued the first blockchain bond in August where we created, allocated, transferred, and managed the entire bond through blockchain technology.”

Speaking about the future aptitudes of the technology, Kim highlighted fighting corruption and improving financial inclusion worldwide. Such innovations could “help us leapfrog generations of bad practice” which would contrarily “take forever in terms of reducing corruption.”

Meantime, a new IMF paper asserted that cryptocurrencies posed a substantial threat to the structural integrity of the global finance market. According to the report, the “continued rapid growth of cryptocurrencies could create vulnerabilities in the international financial system.” Speaking also during the same session, Christine Lagarde, the IMF chief said that it was important that countries around the world be awake to the use of fintech as a conduit for moving money around illegally.

Notably, at the same conference, Kim said he is very concerned about the trade tensions between China and the United States and warned of a clear hit to global growth if all countries escalated their tariff threats. He suggested that more study is required to understand the effects of a trade war on countries that supply goods and services to China.