Public blockchains enable publishing. When I make a publicly verifiable transaction on the bitcoin network, it is just publishing that the coin is now held by a new address.
That's the idea behind a blockchain. Making it private, or closed is counter-intuitive.
Exactly. It is really unbelievable to see how bankers try to employ some buzz-worded "blockchain-technology" for any use case that pops up into their minds irrespective of the efficiency of the solution. Most of banker's blockchain use cases can be served by traditional data banks much more efficiently. The simple reason is that bankers consistently renounce the most important aspect of the Bitcoin blockchain: decentralization. If you want a centrally controlled service, there is no advantage of using "blockchain-technology" over a simple data bank.
What I see happening here is that they improve their services with a closed blockchain (or with multiple blockchains) which will cut down their cost, but I think that this will have a great effect on the customer. Even though a closed blockchain does not have intrinsic value as its main aspects are lost, it does have a much greater potential than the systems that are already in place. Just think about Visa. Look at how long it takes them to completely settle transactions and compare those times with Bitcoin.
