Financial relations and financial instruments in the context of digital transformation

Abstract

The subject of this article is smart contracts as digital financial instruments and their financial and economic essence, defined as digital instruments for regulating financial relations. The main purpose of the article is to introduce into scientific circulation such a systemic concept as digital financial instruments and mechanisms based on considering their economic, legal and financial essence. The methodological basis for considering the problem of smart contracts is a systematic approach that allows presenting a smart contract from a technological, economic, legal and financial perspective as a set of elements with their specific functions that define its complex concept. The article reveals the nature of financial relations that arise at the time of the conclusion of bilateral or multilateral transactions, and smart contracts are presented as ways of their automatic settlement. The termination of the functioning of a smart contract is a confirmation of the completion of the transaction and the moment of termination of financial relations. The fundamental possibility of using smart contracts in the system of budgetary relations as a tool for settling a multilateral transaction is shown. The authors demonstrate that smart contracts are currently an essential element of a new stage in the development of financial technologies. Smart contracts are presented as a complex and systemic concept as digital ways of settling financial relations arising from the conclusion of bilateral or multilateral transactions. The emerging opportunities of their use in the system of financial relations and the practice of their settlement are only beginning to be realized by specialists in the financial and banking sphere. As an example, the possibility of using smart contracts in the regulation of budgetary relations in general and in increasing the efficiency of the use of budgetary funds in financing sanitary transport services, in particular, is demonstrated.