The latest industry to adopt blockchain for its operations is the pension planning industry. The retirement services industry is estimated to have a total value of pension assets of $19.1 trillion in the United States. Despite its massive size, however, the industry still operates in data silos and with Excel sheets. Blockchain could streamline operations and make it easier for pension account planners and holders to manage payouts.

A paper by consulting firm Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (CTSH) earlier this year outlined possible use cases for blockchain. Among them are standard uses, such as record management and planning documents with blockchain, as well as unconventional implementations of the technology, such as tracking expenditures for pension account holders who have taken out loans or developing custom pension coins (similar to cryptocurrency bitcoin) for desired behavior from participants.

While it is still early days, blockchain technology has caught the attention of several industry leaders in the space. In an interview with Bloomberg BNA, Roshina Nandra, vice president of Prudential Retirement Innovation Lab, said the company began exploring blockchain use cases three years ago. According to her, blockchain is a “more secure record-keeping system” than existing solutions in the industry. Fidelity Investments, another giant within the retirement services industry, is exploring blockchain use in its technology innovation unit Fidelity Labs.

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