Be a Blockhead: Build the Chain!

“The one great element in continuing the success of an offensive is maintaining the momentum.” — George C. Marshall

The above quote from General George C. Marshall emphasizes the importance of maintaining momentum to achieve an end goal. Whether moving on a battlefield or trying to change entrenched industry practices, having momentum propels the effort forward and can make all the difference in achieving a successful outcome. It fuels itself and sweeps others to the cause.

To that end, I was very pleased to learn recently that The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative is taking the next steps to move surety processes away from ink and paper to the world of enterprise-level blockchain solutions. As I wrote in an earlier Pipeline column, applying the latest in digital distributed ledger technology—i.e., blockchain—to automate, streamline, and digitize multi-party surety work processes and documents is making the stuff of hopes into tangible reality. NASBP is one of the surety industry associations supporting the RiskStream Collaborative’s exploration of and solution generation for traditional surety work flows and transactions. Early on, NASBP, through the involvement of the Automation and Technology Committee, provided feedback to the RiskStream Collaborative on different use cases, i.e., surety bonding workflow components, for possible application of blockchain technology solutions. What rose to the top of the list in use cases was the generation and distribution of surety bond powers of attorney.

At the same time, the arrival and continuance of the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the urgency of moving surety bonding in a digital direction. The “same old, same old” inefficient processes could not be done without some risk to personal health and safety. Wishing for a better way gave way to expecting a better way! We have seen individual companies, such as technology companies supporting the surety industry and surety companies themselves, take steps to better automate workflows and processes. I continue to read announcements of the adoption of digital and e-signature technology to automate the execution of general indemnity agreements, for example. Further, a prominent technology company recently announced the integration of proprietary software systems to marry agency management with digital bond creation and delivery. These are all tremendous strides, and these companies deserve our attention and gratitude. Through individual actions, these companies are building the momentum for the inevitable sea change to a digital surety world, and they are not standing back and waiting to do so.

The efforts of The RiskStream Collaborative occupy a singular place of importance, however, as the surety industry needs multi-party workflow solutions which can overcome disparate, proprietary systems, providing true data transference. That has been the “holy grail” aspiration, and the advent of blockchain technology, which can allow different proprietary systems to connect with and respond to each other, now offers us that possibility. Having such solutions in hand also allows the surety industry to have more effective outreach to public and private bond obligees in an effort to convince them to move to digital bond solutions.

After hosting a series of successful workshops on powers of attorney, The RiskStream Collaborative surety initiative has announced moving forward with advancing its proof-of-concept case. This exploration also has generated momentum for a second surety project, focusing on surety bond signature and verification and launching in the fall of this year. Read The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative press release on this subject.

NASBP will continue wholeheartedly to support these efforts as an organization and specifically through its Automation and Technology Committee Chair Mike Lischer and liaisons Jenni Waggoner and Robert Coon. The upcoming Fall East and West Meetings will have a special session on surety and blockchain technology, and our fall issue of Surety Bond Quarterly will include articles on surety digitization and on use of blockchain technology.

If you are excited by these developments, you can be a momentum builder too! The NASBP Automation and Technology Committee specifically requests that agency and surety company processing staff reach out and ask to join the Automation and Technology Committee. You can fill in a NASBP Committee Interest Form. Your voice and enthusiasm are paramount to our momentum on these projects, and you can conveniently participate via committee phone calls.

With all that is happening and will happen, isn’t momentum a beautiful thing! Be a Blockhead and build the Chain!