Bitcoin Forum

The chief executive of CIBC says the bank isn't afraid of new entrants and technologies that threaten to shake up the financial services sector.

Instead, the lender is closely studying everything from peer-to-peer lending platforms to the technology underlying digital currencies such as Bitcoin, looking for ways it can use these innovations for its own benefit.

"We can play in that space," Victor Dodig said Tuesday when asked whether he feels threatened by financial technology startups that seek to disrupt the traditional banking sector, the bank is closely studying blockchain technology — computer code that makes up the underlying architecture of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin.

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http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/CIBC+chief+says+banks+will+adapt+disruptive+impact+technologies/11160092/story.html

A pretty good discussion regarding somewhat the same topic about banks looking into the blockchain technology https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1091635 . I feel it is bad for bitcoin specially blockchain being one of the major advantages of bitcoin. If banks implement this technology, it should hurt bitcoin to some extent, but since banks aren't fans of the transparency, it is likely that it wouldn't be of much use to them.

Banks are gonna need to lead the way when the USD is destroyed.  ZIRP is never gonna end, Until there is a collapse. 

i'm not sure if building a centralized copy of the blochchain will cut it in the end, sure they will have better power cost and speed, but ultimately it will not change much for the customers, besides more transparency i guess, but people are actually fleeing from banks because of that

they want to retrieve some privacy, and because of full control over their money this will elevate only, the awareness of people around the world, about bitcoin

How ironic ~ Nobody know for sure, but it looked like Satoshi developed the Bitcoin protocol to stick it to the banks. Now he is gone and they are stealing his blockchain technology to use it to make them even stronger.
They will not use the blockchain in fear of what it could be used for if he retaliates, they would rather use a new technology based on his concept. ^Very Sad^

Well maybe at current situation when people are not that well informed. We have seen giant companies getting squeezed out from emerging technologies, so in any scenario no one can actually predict what would happen, even when you say that you have every corners well covered. But it's an understatement when they say integration is possible. When you can't print, you can't control it, so it's a totally different ball game.

What did you expect? The banks would never open their arms and embrace a free, open source project, they want their own cake and charge their own interest rates for their slices. Our hope is that their experiments fail and they end up forced to enter the bitcoin blockchain or be deprecated by it.

Few weeks ago Santander said that banks coud save 20 billion dollars by only using the Blockchain.

Just wait untill the railroad is ready; huge profits will be made with it.

I did not expect anything less from them. They nearly collapsed the global economy with their scrupulous practices and they are extorting the poor to enrich themselves in developing countries.
What I do expect from them, are a total re-branding of the Blockchain technology as their own innovation and a focused attack on the Bitcoin community to destroy them. All this being funded by our money. 

Definitely Bitcoin doesn't need bank, but they require the bank like infrastructure to handle all financial transactions methods, Even it is online, Bitcoin requires such an infrastructure to maintain it's database and monitored it securely. Mostly now a days conventional banks are loosing its value and morals.

If bitcoins start being accepted with banks, banks would defeat their whole idea about accepting money as they want to know where the money is, and would like to keep a track. That i directly, will defeat the idea of bitcoin which respects user privacy and cannot be tracked or marked. The day they start being marked, it breaks the privacy right of customers.

Fine, So, what happens when you exchange Bitcoins with fiat currency, isn't it going to your bank account or don't you withdraw the money from any source, in this way their will be a tracks exist there, the whole concept of bitcoin is to have a legal transparency and keep the funds secure and safer.

They'll have to adapt to survive. If there's ways they can massively save money they're not just going to let them pass up. There's already several banks looking into how they can adopt blockchain technology but that likely won't do anything positive for bitcoin as they'll use their own systems or a third party company, but bitcoin will still remain as a decentralized alternative outside of the mainstream.

It does not matter what technology you use, it is the money's credibility matters. As long as banks are using fiat money in their network, no difference than today's banking. But if they go ahead with running their own alt-coin, then they will immediately lose the edge before bitcoin

Banks are definitely going to adapt to Bitcoin and the blockchain. The first bank or financial institution to do it will probably be outside the Western world, maybe in Ecuador or somewhere else where the country is planning experiments with blockchains/digital currencies on their own.

The blockchain technology is now applied from to many banks: are between the biggest of the world. There are 22 the number of those which are applying this technology through the consortium led by financial tech firm R3. For more read this article of Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/29/banks-blockchain-idUSL5N11Z2QE20150929 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/29/banks-blockchain-idUSL5N11Z2QE20150929)

More and more this technology is attract the atention of all the technological world.