Many financial institutions are poised to increase their blockchain spending in 2021, according to an upcoming survey from Deloitte titled “Financial Services Industry Outlooks 2020.”

Preliminary results shared with Cointelegraph indicate that 27% of the institutions surveyed expect a “slight increase in spend” for blockchain and distributed ledger technology, while 14% are expecting a large increase. A further 33% expect no change, with the remaining 27% looking to cut their expenditure slightly.

The survey was held between July and August 2020. Respondents included 800 senior executives at financial institutions — banks, payments companies, insurance companies, hedge funds, and other investment companies. The companies were required to have posted at least $1 billion in revenue in 2019 to be included in the survey.

The survey grouped blockchain with a variety of other emerging technologies. While it was not the most popular overall, the technology appears to be quite polarizing: The percentage of institutions that expect a large expenditure increase is the second-highest in the sample, with just cloud computing edging slightly ahead at 15%.

Conversely, only robotic process automation left more institutions unimpressed, as 35% of them expect to wind down their expenditure. Artificial intelligence is a close third, with 26% of respondents expecting to reduce investment.

Financial institutions may also be looking to boost investment in data privacy and cybersecurity — fields that could potentially employ a number of blockchain-based solutions.

Commenting on the report, Richard Walker, head of Deloitte’s financial services blockchain team, said that 2021 will be “a break-out year for blockchain and digital ledger technologies.”

Following years of promises and expectations, “People will be surprised by the perceived speed and impact in this space next year,” he added.

The report follows a similarly positive survey conducted by Deloitte in February, which noted that 39% of companies worldwide already had blockchain technology integrated in production.

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