Blockchain and Smart Contracts for Secure and Sustainable Development

Abstract

Smart contracts play an important role of simplifying business and trade between the identified and anonymous parties without need of any intermediary to handle the transaction, as well as the intermediary's associated fees and time delays. A business can easily bring the transparency and build the trust of the customers by storing the encrypted records of transaction across participants. It also prevents hackers from breaking the integrity of the transaction because each record is connected on a distributed ledger, and if hackers want to alter any particular record, he/she would have to modify the entire chain for a single record. Therefore, a smart contract has huge potential to streamline and automate the business work across industries around the world. In this chapter, the authors will explore the potential of blockchain and smart contracts in the different aspects of business world, like supply chain, insurance, mortgage loans, financial settlements, and many more applications in the financial industry.