Bank of America is planning to use the Blockchain Technology in some parts of its cash handling devices. It has filed its application for patenting the same. The title of the patent is- “Banking Controlled y Data Bearing Records.” In the file, BoA has elaborated on how the ‘digital ledger technology’ will help in enhancing the regular cash deposit and withdrawal systems. The bank aims to use the Blockchain technology’s ‘distributed database’ for maintaining the records of cash movement within the bank, and between a bank and the different financial entities. As the cash handlers are generally used in helping the bank in calculations, counting and keeping track of its cash flow to safeguard it from any mismanagement, wastage of time and effort, and theft; the proposed patent should help in increasing its efficiency in all these areas. The ledger structure of the Blockchain technology shall also help in recognizing deposit that was received from the previously used cash handlers. The abstract of the patent opened by covering the integral aspects of the proposed patent filing-
“Aspects of the disclosure relate to deploying, configuring, and utilizing cash handling devices to provide dynamic and adaptable operating functions.”
The document further emphasized the importance of the blockchain integration for making other cash handling machines to check withdrawals. It further added that-
“In some embodiments, sending the first transaction information encoded for the blockchain distributed database to the cash handling device support server may cause the cash handling device support server to generate and send one or more alerts based on identifying the one or more cash transportation needs of the cash handling device.”
Another benefit of using the Blockchain technology, according to the Bank of America is that it could help in improving the efficiency of its ATMs. The technology should help in accelerating the transaction speed in addition to the regular transactions such as cash withdrawals and deposits, BoA in the patent document mentioned that other facilities such as ‘gift registry transactions’ can also become possible with the Blockchain technology. To further benefits of the technology, BoA said that the system could also help ATMs to track transactions.
Such patent filing shows a clear interest of the bank in progressing in the Blockchain technology. The bank has applied for more than 53 patent applications based on the Blockchain technology.
On the other hand, other giants such as Alibaba and IBM have also filed their respective patent for the Blockchain technology. IBM has filed for 89 patent applications, and Alibaba, on the other hand, has filed for 90 Blockchain patents. This year in September, the research report by Thomas Reuters revealed that 56 percent of 406 Blockchain patents that were issued around the world last year were from China. China left the U.S. way behind with 22 percent in the intellectual property rights competition.
