Bitcoin threatens UK financial industry - McKinsey

Blockchain technologies, such as bitcoin, can destroy the UK financial services industry and damage the country's tax system. according to John Straw, a senior adviser to the consulting company McKinsey.

"Let's say that somebody actually does produce a working blockchain peer-to-peer [financial] system. It'll be a lending system that actually scales, we won't need banks any more. So, at that point that we won't need banks," he said as cited by online media outlet Computing.

The disaster won't stop at banks, on the contrary, it will start snowballing and erase from existence central clearing houses, thus destroying the whole business of the City, which is considered to be the largest taxpayer in the country.

As a consequence this will affect financing of governmental social programs such as National Finance System.

Apart from that, Straw sees a danger in tax aversion as blockchain payments allow for anonymous transactions.  Therefore, he supports the decision of France and Germany to ban the digital coin Libra coin proposed by Facebook and called the blockchain "the killer of democracy in many ways."

At the same time, Straw emphasised the benefits of smart contracts technology. They allow you to carry out fast automated transactions, without the need for escrow and lawyers, who "are unlikely to be happy," he stressed.

Notably, Facebook's head Mark Zuckerberg believes that the financial industry is now in stagnation and needs a digital infrastructure to support innovation.