Streamlined operations and easier payouts are only some of thebenefits that blockchain could bring to the pension planningindustry.

So says an Investopedia report, which points out that although the retirement servicesindustry has estimated total pension assets of $19.1 trillion inthe U.S., the fact that it’s still reliant on data silos and Excelspreadsheets means that inefficiencies are built into the system.Blockchain, it says, “could streamline operations and make it easier forpension account planners and holders to manage payouts.”

A paper by consulting firm Cognizant Technology SolutionsCorporation has further highlighted possible use cases for blockchain, among whichare both standard and unconventional uses of the technology. Notonly could it be used for such workaday tasks as record managementand planning documents, but also for tracking expenditures forpension account holders who have taken out loans or even fordeveloping custom pension coins (similar to the cryptocurrencybitcoin) for desired behavior from participants.

And companies are already sitting up and taking notice. RoshinaNandra, vice president of Prudential Retirement Innovation Lab,said in a Bloomberg interview that the company began exploringblockchain use cases three years ago and that blockchain is a “moresecure recordkeeping system” than existing solutions in theindustry. Fidelity Investments, for its part, is exploringblockchain use in its technology innovation unit Fidelity Labs.

Raphael Vantroost, who leads advisory and partnerships atstartup Auctus, which is aimed at the pension planning industry,has compared pension plans to smart contracts within blockchain.The latter is a digital contract with preconfigured rules. Pensionplans can be configured as a smart contract with payments ifcertain criteria defined in the original plan are met. Prudential’sNandra also said in the report that life insurance companies couldalso automatically make payouts upon a person’s death if they areable to receive a digital status alert.

And of course millennials are out ahead of the curve on this,with some of them already using blockchain for retirement planningand saving. The Bitcoin IRA has crafted bitcoin funds forinterested millennials, and earlier this year launched the firstretirement fund based on digital currency Ethereum.