ok, so say I need to distribute payments. If I transfer money to a wallet and then a smart contract automatically takes care of sending the right amounts to the right wallets, it could be more convenient than current payment distribution solutions, no?
I think that's a poor example for the following reasons;
* if it's a one off payment to all recipients, why not just send it manually?
* what happens when you need to add or remove recipients? Compared to just phoning up the bank to amend a standing order.
* what happens if you accidentally pay someone the wrong amount?
* what happens if you lose your wallet and you can't continue paying?
I would rather have a bank handle all of the edge cases and provide the consumer protections I want out of a payments/account system than some random script that I (or someone I have to pay) has to maintain that could be responsible for vast amounts of funds.
Sure, you can use the bank. Internally, the bank could do this on the chain though and give you all those protections, so you don't even need to do know the details
But why would the bank use the chain, the financial web of trust is already there and doesn't need to use a chain to facilitate internal or external transfers of monies. It would be a huge time sink with no real benefit to the consumer or the shareholders.
Say this smart contract is aware of interest rates, and due dates, and minimum payments, ... and it will prioritize payments according to interest rate?
I wrote a program to help me do this with my student loans, that does sound useful.
Can you provide an example of this?