Objective Contradictions in the Integration of Social Networks, Payments Services and Distributed Ledger Technology

Abstract

The article is devoted to the discussion of urgent problems of developing financial services projects of retail. They are based on a combination of the capabilities of existing social networks and distributed ledger technology (DLT), as new subjects of competition in the banking sector of the market. The threat to commercial banks is determined by the risk of loss of income, in particular, commission income from transfer transactions that are already being executed in the social media environment, and which have the potential for growth in turnover. Despite the active development of crypto-innovations (algorithms, platforms, actually cryptocurrencies), the use of distributed ledger technologies by the banks themselves in the financial sector is still very modest. At the same time, social networks with a huge client base show an obvious interest in fintech prospects. These two components of the projects under discussion are contradictory and the success of integration is not obvious. Therefore, it is of interest to researchers in the financial sector. The author consider the main, from their point of view, properties of social networks, payment services and distributed ledger technologies that are significant for the projects under consideration and the issues of banks' competition with them.