The government of Sweden wants to annually save €100 million using blockchain
Warning: if you are a notary in Sweden, you may not like the following information. In collaboration with local businesses, the government of the country wants to dismiss notaries from land deals, replacing them with blockchain by 2019.
However, the issue is not that Swedish authorities are for some reason angry with notaries. It’s all about the willingness to lower the overall level of bureaucracy, mistakes, and falsifications in the real estate business. As well as the potential cost-cutting for the state — up to €100 million every year.
The core idea of the project is to shift contracts to the decentralized ledger. The system provides access to information for a seller, buyer, bank, and those who help to conduct the deal and protect the rights of parties.
Banks, a blockchain startup, a consulting firm, and telecommunication companies take part in the development of the project. National land registry authority provides financing.
The project is in the third implementation phase: the first two phases have shown the efficiency of smart contracts for automating land registry operations. A smart contract system can use any type of blockchain.
Representatives of development companies say that other countries also show interest in the project. According to the World Bank, over two-thirds of the global population do not have access to land registration. Moreover, the existing systems are bureaucratic and affected by mistakes and falsifications.
To be fair, nobody waits for quick results: preliminary estimates show that the system will start to operate in 2019. The reason is once again the bureaucracy. However, the EU is making reciprocal moves: last year, the Electronic Signatures Directive was adopted, without which the advantages of the system are minor. It is automatically validated digital signature that will allow to refuse from notary services.
By the way, Sweden is not the only state, where authorities officially support blockchain. In Georgia, where the first steps towards the shift of property rights towards the decentralized ledger were made back in 2016, over 100,000 documents were registered in a similar system. Currently, the company that developed the system for Georgia, Bitfury, is running a new project — Exonum platform that allows creating various services on blockchain and processing up to 3000 transactions per second.
Information on the development of decentralized services in Govtech and fundraising for blockchain startups through ICOs will be highlighted by the speakers of the Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference that will take place in Stockholm on September 7. The program includes case studies in banking sector, power industry, insurance industry, and business.
Author: Ilya Lopatin
