Blockchain technology use cases among businesses in Italy 2017

In 2017, banks, FinTech companies, and other financial institutions in Italy were interviewed to find out their opinion on the potential business use cases of blockchain technologies. Some 44 percent of the interviewed companies thought that that blockchain could be successfully leveraged to manage digital identities. The majority of the respondents, however, saw great potential for blockchain technologies in the fields of payment infrastructure and trade finance (67 and 61 percent, respectively). In the latter case, blockchain technologies allow for the fast, paperless transmission of trading documents between exporters, importers, and banks.

Still immature in the private sector

Blockchain technologies provide secure, transparent, and decentralized ledgers for transactions of any kind of asset in a network. Since users trust each other, transactions can happen without the supervision of a central authority, with great advantages in terms of costs and speed. According to another survey conducted by Osservatori Digital Innovation in 2018, about a third of large companies had limited knowledge about blockchain, and only three percent had implemented blockchain projects at full scale. Overall, it looks like the majority of companies had not yet realized the full potential of blockchain: only a third of respondents considered it a revolutionary technology.

Public support of blockchain

It comes as no surprise, then, that the Italian blockchain sector was still lagging in comparison to other European countries. For example, in 2018 there were about 7.2 thousand blockchain professionals in Italy. By contrast, a much smaller country like the Netherlands counted roughly 11.5 thousand blockchain professionals. From improving product traceability to fighting the counterfeit of products, Italy does not lack opportunities for blockchain adoption. In September 2018, the country joined the European Blockchain Partnership, an organization that promotes the development of European blockchain infrastructure. In 2019, the Italian government strongly supported the adoption of blockchain initiatives, for example in the notarization of documents.