Yep, it's an exciting time to be alive! My firm (I work for a big global bank) is one of those actively researching blockchain technology to see how it can improve the industry. Right now the biggest focus is on applying it to settlement systems. It takes a long time, multiple days, for various types of trades to settle, and the trades flow through many different IT systems in the process. There are incredibly complicated sets of checks & balances to make sure data isn't corrupted or lost along the way.

Blockchain tech has the potential to cut through all that mess and reduce settlement times dramatically by eliminating the need to trust third parties and perform all those extra checks. It's not going to happen fast; replacing the existing gargantuan IT systems will take time, but the first exploratory baby steps are being taken and that's quite exciting indeed!