Pub. 8 2017 Issue 3

Fall 2017 17 West Virginia Banker Nicholas P. Mooney II is a Member attorney in Spilman Thomas & Battle’s Charleston, West Virginia office. His primary area of practice is consumer financial services litigation in federal and state courts. He has devoted all of his time for the past 17 years to that practice area. He can be reached at 304.340.3860 or nmooney@spilmanlaw.com. network. That information then could be used to create updated authentication questions. BoA's patent application also reveals that it is studying ways to use real-time images of users that could be obtained from various objects linked through the Internet of Things and stored on the blockchain. The user's identity then could be confirmed with those re- al-time images. BoA is not alone. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's database indicates nearly 400 patent applications were submitted from January to July 2017 that appear to relate to this technology. That is almost double the amount submitted during the same time period in 2016. Another area where financial institutions see great promise in blockchain technology is in the clearing and settlement of stock transactions. Currently, it could take up to three days for a transaction to settle and the money to be available after the transaction is completed. However, if blockchain technolo- gy is adopted, the three-day process could be collapsed to be nearly instantaneous. Similarly, blockchain technology could be used in the issuance of stocks. The London Stock Exchange Group and IBM recently announced that they part- nered to build a platform to digitally issue private shares in companies listed on the Exchange Group's Italian operations. The same soon may happen in the U.S. Last month, Delaware Governor John C. Carney, Jr. signed into law a bill that chang- es Delaware's corporation law. This new law authorizes corpo- rations to use "distributed electronic networks or databases" (blockchain technology) for the creation and maintenance of a corporation's records, including transfer and ownership of the corporation's stock. This technology offers even more significant promise in other countries. One company, Humaniq, intends to use a block- chain to help bring financial inclusion to unbanked people. Approximately 2 billion people worldwide do not have access to a bank account, but one billion of them have a mobile tele- phone. With a pilot project starting in West Africa, Humaniq plans to introduce an app that will offer a person the ability to make mobile payments by telephone. It also will include a digital wallet function that will keep track of the money each person has and record the amount, and all transactions, on a blockchain. The goal is to let those people use their mobile telephone as their own bank. Blockchain technology continues to be a source of inspiration for banks and other companies. Like any other technology, it has its critics. But, it also is receiving significant attention as banks and other companies continue to study ways to imple- ment it in the future. 