Perspectives 2019 2020 Public Sector

76 Digital Government: Key Steps to Automating Transactional Activity Digital platforms also enable entitlements like aid, welfare, remittances, donations, and healthcare to be digitized and delivered through blockchain technology. Digital payments leverage blockchain to create digital solutions for governmental flows towards a new digital asset economy. All transactions made through this kind of solution are instantly verifiable. The solution is secure, every transaction is secured using a distributed ledger, and transparent, every transaction is permanently recorded and can be traced from start to finish. This also supports anti-corruption as records cannot be manipulated on the distributed ledger. 5. Delivering an Enhanced Experience for Citizens, Businesses & Civil Service Staff In an era of open borders and migration waves, central governments are frequently required to deliver social security payments, such as pensions and other benefits, to citizens living abroad. While these transactions are critically important it is not uncommon for payment to take days, weeks or even months to be delivered. The lengthy cycle amplifies the engagement of various resources in unproductive tasks, increases the cost of the transaction exponentially and that is often passed to the beneficiaries and eventually inflates the dissatisfaction of the citizens who collect their funds with unreasonable delays and costs. A few governments and agencies managing Social Security flows have moved ahead of the curve and deployed digital solutions that have enabled them to shorten the delivery cycle from several days or weeks down to days or even hours. Through these tools they can also access the local value clearing systems, substantially reducing collection costs for their citizens. With a clear, centralized view of real-time cash positions, government departments can optimize liquidity management and therefore, make more informed funding decisions. The flexibility offered in this solution allows clients to individually view transaction activity, manage online banking entitlements and generate virtual account statements. In a recent case, a Middle Eastern government managed to cut down the cross border pension payments delivery time to citizens living abroad, from over six weeks to two days. Most importantly, the implementation cycle was less than 10 weeks, the government entity did not open additional accounts and there were no incremental costs.