The financial services industry is 'dangerously complacent in its approach to digital money', Professor G 'Anand' Anandalingam has warned.

Professor Anandalingam was writing in City AM ahead of a major symposium on digital money to be held at Canary Wharf by Citi and Imperial College London.

In the article, Professor Anandalingam, Dean of Imperial College Business School, said: “Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cannot be dismissed as the preserve of those engaged in suspicious transactions on the dark web… Some banks, governments, startups and academics are beginning to pay attention, albeit sluggishly.

“The blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies is simply a faster, cheaper, more reliable way to handle money electronically. Distributed ledgers – the open and networked basis for proving ownership and transfers of such currencies – dramatically shorten the time it takes to clear transactions, wherever they take place in the world. If the banks don’t lead this digital disruption, someone else will…

“We in universities must lead the change too, or risk falling behind. At Imperial College Business School, digital money has become the new normal. Our students are fintech-savvy. Many take classes on digital money and experiment with blockchain. Our graduates are helping to build digital money startups like mobile payment firm Yoyo, which is providing a glimpse of a cash-free future. Business scholars collaborate with data scientists at Imperial’s Centre for Cryptocurrency Research and Engineering, where we are already looking beyond money and what we previously thought of as the digital realm; cryptocurrencies could change the way we deal with contracts, identity, medical prescriptions, patents and copyright.

“No city in the world is as well placed as London to lead this revolution. We have the world’s most important financial services industry, more first-class universities than any other city, and a thriving startup culture that has fintech in its sights. But too few industry, government and academic leaders recognise this change. No industry is immune from disruption. With digital money, we have a simple choice: disrupt or be disrupted.”

The full article can be read in City AM

Top image credit: Antana