Blockchain no BNDES: um estudo de caso sobre inovação em um banco público

Abstract

Public banks are powerful tools for implementing public policies, as long as they have appropriate financial resources and technical expertise, and are able to show to society that they are making good use of their funds. They may be captured by political parties, interest groups, or by its own bureaucracy. Therefore, accountability and transparency must be at the core of a public bank's activities. BNDES (Brazilian National Development Bank) is a public bank that has the mission to foster Brazil's economic and social development. The banking sector is technology-intensive and has been studying the use of the blockchain technology to reduce the cost of monetary transactions and mitigate frauds. BNDES' IT department has been working in two blockchain-related innovation IT projects aiming to enhance the bank's own transparency and accountability. The first IT project is a collaboration between BNDES and KfW (Germany National Development Bank) to publish in a private blockchain all non-reimbursable investments funded from the Amazon Fund (a fund to prevent deforestation and develop in a sustainable way the Brazilian Amazon, managed by BNDES). The second is a IT project that proposes the use of a digital token published in a public blockchain to track the use of BNDES' money in projects funded by the bank. This work presents a study case on how the blockchain innovation developed inside the institution, anchored by a theoretical innovation framework from the literature on public sector innovation.