QIWI Calls To Use Blockchain Against Digital Slavery

Speaking at the second annual conference "Flexible Project Management in Banking", Alexey Arkhipov, CTO of Qiwi, stated that Blockchain can help to prevent digital slavery.

The CTO of QIWI, a payment service provider headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus, pointed out that it is necessary today to determine the rules of digital identity registration and its protection. He said:

“The main thing is to make sure that the person’s "digital identity" belongs to this person. When we speak about the centralized storage of biometric data, it turns out that a person actually "gives" his digital identity to someone. In fact, this means that he gives rights to someone, for example, to transfer his funds from one bank to another.”

Alexey Arkhipov noted that banking and financial operators often forget about the user. Sometimes users must cope with the problem of a lack of interoperability and decentralization in the financial industry, when a user must submit his/her data to different banks and financial companies multiple times.

He said:

“While solving the problem of a lack of interoperability, [banks and financial operators] can accidentally invent digital slavery, when the digital identity of users is controlled by the operator of the system.”

Blockchain can help to solve this problem, as it provides convenient technology for data storage. However, Blockchain is a distributed ledger system and decentralization is a key of this technology. But banks, again and again, try to both find a way to use it and make it centralized.

Alexey Arkhipov reminded: 

“Of course, centralization eliminates risks and defines responsibility, and this is convenient. But if you use Blockchain for centralized management - it is no longer Blockchain, but just another centralized system with the nominal use of new technology.”