Are systems like money transfers and payments ripe for disintermediation? Sheila Bair, a former chair of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), thinks so, and blockchains and cryptocurrencies may be the technologies to do it. Consider the big business of wiring money between countries, for example. “Anytime they try to transfer money to me or vice versa, I get these whopping fees…banks make tons of money off of payments,” Bair said on s+b’s podcast, Take on Tomorrow. “That’s intermediation. With a blockchain, I could just transfer it directly…and there would not be any cost.”
