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Once the darling of Silicon Valley, Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes convinced investors that she could accomplish the (currently) impossible. With Steve Jobsian style, dress and a sharp wit investors wanted to desperately to believe.

The debate about which is the best type of investment is as old as investing itself. While no market is “crash-proof,” real estate is traditionally viewed as one of the best and safest (if not the safest) investment options available, for several reasons.

Bitcoin is often portrayed as an untraceable method of payment that facilitates illicit activities by enabling criminals to make and receive payments without being tracked. This depiction implies that users transacting in bitcoin can do so completely anonymously — that their identities will not be exposed. However, that is not necessarily the case. While bitcoin offers increased privacy compared to traditional payment methods involving a third-party intermediary such as a credit card provider, it is still not as anonymous as a cash transaction. In fact, there are many ways a person’s identity could potentially be exposed in bitcoin transactions.

A coalition of cryptocurrency and blockchain organization won’t be taking big tech’s recent ban of crytpo-related ads sitting down.

Article first published on March 28th, 2018 on Coincentral.com

Conserving plastic with digital control over Debit & Credit cards

Cryptocurrencies – digital currencies that are transparent and free from government interference, running on secure blockchain technology are growing in popularity. In investment circles, and the wider sphere of financial services overall, cryptocurrencies still face a lot of skepticism and prejudice, fueled by regulatory uncertainty, volatility and in some cases, the perception of bloated valuations.

World Satoshi Summit & NASSCOM Blockchain SIG to Promote adoption of Blockchain for various sectors and industries

The global financial system comprises of transactions that involve trillions of dollars a day, not to forget billions of people. And though the current system, at a glance, seems to be working fine, it’s riddled with various issues that need to be addressed, and now.

We talked to Finxact co-founder Dan McKinney about the changing service industry, the ever-growing importance of customer experience and all the implications for banks today. And what came first, the chicken or the egg?

When was the last time you pulled out a wad of cash to pay for dinner or a stack of dollar bills to cover your rent?  If you’re like the rest of the developed world, chances are, it’s been a while. The transition to a cashless society has been a long time in the making, but there are other interesting developments afoot, leading to a rise in Alternative Payment Methods (APMs).

Lenders have long faced down the issue of fraud, but now, digital lenders are now facing even greater challenges. Digital lenders have become an easy target for identity and transaction-related fraud, compared with non-digital lenders, as criminals can now hide behind a mobile or computer screen.

While Fintech companies were initially viewed as a banking competitor, the two are finding that there is greater benefit to working together. According to the 2017 World Retail Banking Report, 91 percent of banks and 75 percent of Fintechs responded that they expect to partner with one another in the future.

Since moving from telecoms into the financial services industry, I have observed that there are a number of lessons that we can take from the disruptive approach we adopted at Skype and change the way our sector operates. In particular, the way we used technology and prioritised core services in my previous line of work can be applied to data management and change standardise large parts of the sector.

The past few years have been a technology roller coaster ride for financial services companies. From heightened cybersecurity threats to increased demands from customers on the digital front, the very rules that defined the industry have changed. And 2018 will be no different.

From hype to crash – in light of the most recent exchange rate developments of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple & Co., disillusionment is reigning on the crypto market. Volatile exchange rates, black sheep amongst traders and the learning that trading with crypto currencies is actually not as easy as buying a lottery ticket, have certainly put a damper on the gold rush atmosphere. Pressure is growing on the crypto traders – most of all because of regulations.

Blockchain has been touted as a disruptive technology that can be used to benefit virtually any transaction, ranging from money transmission to supply chain management, to restaurant reservations. With its promise of highly secure, private and instantaneous transactions, blockchain would seem to enhance any transfer or transaction.

Financial services companies are growing through an intense period of acquisitions and mergers. This has resulted in requiring a parent company to maintain IT infrastructures for several different organizations, each with their own lines of business.

Capital has been flowing into the alternative investment industry over the past few years, with sources projecting that money invested in private funds will reach as much as $20 trillion by 2020. Preqin recently published a study stating that there are as many as 17,000 private funds open for investment.

The increased interest and excitement towards cryptocurrencies has resulted in an influx of new money flowing into the cryptocurrency market. However, entering into the crypto world is extremely intimidating, especially when you’re dealing with a subject matter that is technically complex. With many making a considerable rate or return on their investments, it is vital to understand how we should value our crypto gains (or losses).

If there is one topic setting tongues wagging in FinTech, it is blockchain. Because of its distributed ledger system, Blockchain makes processes easier, faster and by extension, cheaper. Bitcoin is only one case among the many applications of crypto. Once its potential is fully explored, blockchain could generate much more than digital money, and empower individuals by putting them in full control of their money and transactions.

On 13 January 2018, the starting pistol was fired for the Open Banking race. Retail banks (and building societies) are now required, with their customers’ consent, to provide access to their customers’ banking data to approved third parties in a standardised, straightforward and secure way. Open Banking has been hailed as a catalyst for the Fintech sector, facilitating innovative new banking apps and services for consumers and small businesses.

Many banking and finance companies have already taken advantage of big data analytics to simplify the process of personalized offers, targeted cross sales and to improve their customer service. The term big data keeps expanding and today incorporates numerous new meanings, such as Deep Learning, Cluster Analysis, Neuron Networks and Artificial Intelligence.

PSD2 - the second Payment Services Directive - offers European consumers significant control over the use of their personal financial data. But while they trust their banks with this sensitive data, a recent Accenture study shows that consumers are overwhelmingly reluctant to share their bank details with third-parties. So how can fintech companies generate trust and encourage consumers to sign-up? I believe empowering consumers to manage their own data could be the answer.

As the digital asset community tries to project how the world’s governments and agencies will ultimately regulate the cascade of coins and tokens now being blockchained into existence, we could use a good anecdote. Do we have a relatively recent story that features large quantities of regulatory uncertainty, customer frenzy and start-up obsession? One that might illuminate basic truths that help token investors and issuers navigate the unusual regulatory landscape they find themselves trying to cross? In fact we do. The story of daily fantasy sports companies during the second half of 2015 offers the digital asset community several valuable insights.

‘Mobile payments’ is a broad term. As the ecosystem has developed, various new technologies have emerged to change the way we act and transact in-store.

The recent, exponential growth of bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptocurrencies has brought cryptocurrencies firmly into the public eye. Some have created crypto-products or tokens to raise funds in a veritable cash grab with little foresight, planning, or disclosure. Others – by the tens and hundreds of thousands – are signing up to purchase crypto-assets. Often these purchasers have no understanding of the underlying technology or the risks involved, proving that, as Mark Twain opined, “common sense is very uncommon.”

As the PSP segment in the payments value chain is maturing, retail prices for online payments are steadily dropping, while the level of service offered to merchants is only increasing. Consequently, players aim to gain scale and increase capabilities through strategic acquisitions. This report describes the global PSP space today and defines the capabilities offered by the different participants in the ecosystem.

Cryptocurrencies – not just bitcoin, but any of the hundreds of different currencies that have been created using blockchain technology – have caught the imagination of the public. There are, seemingly, daily articles that predict either the demise of all traditional currencies in favor of cryptocurrencies, and just as many articles predicting the demise of cryptocurrencies.

In the past 18 months a great many column inches have been given over to distributed ledger technology, more commonly known as blockchain and its power to disrupt industries, particularly in the financial sector.

Blockchain and identity management are not only a natural fit, but will also be an increasingly important part for online businesses in the future. AI and Blockchain will play crucial roles in customer onboarding and provide better conversion for businesses and more security for all parties involved.

FinTech Weekly talked to online identification provider IDnow about why identity management will be one of the most interesting areas to watch in 2018. Further, we discussed their highly interesting business, how opening bank accounts online can be safer than in a bank, and how even customers of 102 years old can use online identification.

FinTech Weekly interviewed Alexander Weber, Head of International Markets at mobile bank N26. We briefly talked about their market expansion to the UK and US, building the fintech hub through partnerships with incumbents and fintechs and why N26 does not fear the tech giants in banking.

“The 90s had dotcom mania. Here comes crypto mania!”
While Bitcoin is conquering new highs in the 20,000 range, and global public attention is glued to the charts of altcoins of all types, opinions have split: from baby boomer’s claiming cryptocurrency a gigantic bubble, to millennials hoping to hedge against political and economic fluctuations.

There were many significant strides forward for the blockchain industry in 2017, but where does that leave things looking ahead to 2018? Here are two areas to keep on your radar for the year to come.

Blockchain is driving a paradigm shift in how we deal with data, rewriting the rulebook around approaches to data management, transparency and ownership. While digital finance is cutting the cost of serving the underbanked to drive financial inclusion, blockchain could offer a way of widening access to even greater numbers of consumers excluded from mainstream financial services.

Recent statements by various regulators around the world demonstrate an increased scrutiny of initial coin offerings ("ICOs"). In order to create a well-functioning global market for ICO fundraisings, a professionalization of the ICO process is urgently needed.

Private Equity (PE) houses completed a record number of investments in FinTech portfolio companies in 2015 according to Pitchbook, marking a 79% increase on the 53 FinTech deals completed by PE firms three years earlier. Since 2015, PE firms have continued to invest in FinTech with the likes of BlackFin Capital Partners and Finstar Financial Group setting the benchmark by investing considerable amounts in the FinTech start-up market. Despite the recent decline in PE investment generally and the economic uncertainty following the Brexit vote, the FinTech start-up industry may be poised to continue its lucrative rise.

Digital fluency and a thirst for convenience are making the UK’s borrowers more capricious and cost-sensitive than ever. Interest rate rises, and new regulations will add fuel to this fire next year, and lenders that can’t keep up will get burned in 2018.

Imagine taking a regular smartphone and turning it into a payment acceptance device with a simple app download. That’s the utopian dream many companies are chasing today and it could bring huge benefits to the payments ecosystem, merchants and consumers as card and mobile payments continue to grow.

Over the past few years there has been a growing proliferation of cryptocurrencies. More recently, companies which may have limited access to fundraising through traditional methods are turning to cryptocurrencies, and initial coin offering (“ICO”), as a means to raise funds.

Someone who invested just USD 1,000 in bitcoin in 2010 will now have a net worth of USD 70 million. With predictions that bitcoin’s value will jump up to USD 50,000, more and more “investors” are jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon in a bid to benefit from the “mysterious” cryptocurrency’s phenomenal climb in value.

Banks and financial services institutions are preparing for a shake-up, with the new payments services directive (known as PSD2) coming into force in a matter of months. The rules are set to transform the payments and banking industries, bringing exciting new opportunities for fintech, along with strict new requirements and responsibilities. Here, we outline the key changes to be aware of.

Enhance the visibility of your ICO when you learn what it takes to get the press needed to take your brand’s public profile to the next level in this industry.

FinTech is rapidly becoming the backbone of consumers’ buying and investing habits, increasingly entrenching different technologies into everyday use. FinTech has transformed the way banks offer financial services to customers, and every day, financial institutions are finding innovative ways to share banking use cases and financial functions with their beneficiaries.

Expensive asset managers today are struggling to deal with the twin challenges to their traditional business model: low-cost, passively-managed index funds, and the online robo-advisors that help retail investors optimize the allocation of their assets between those funds. The finance industry is still unprepared for the next big disruption — widespread use of robo-advisors for liabilities: online tools that will deliver customized credit solutions to consumers in real time.

We stopped by at some of the startups and established fintechs at this year's WebSummit in Lisbon to ask them what their respective products can achieve – in just three minutes. Here's who they are, what they do and how they see the industry.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Challenger banks are doing what their name suggests, and research indicates they are gaining ground. For established lenders, replicating the characteristics of their smaller, more agile competitors, will help them defend their position. Outsourcing is the key, argues Sarah Jackson, Director, Equiniti Credit Services.

Fintech – the potent intersection of the finance and technology industries – has transformed the business landscape forever. After all, technology had already irrevocably transformed our lives, from the way we shop to the way we socialise. It was time that technology revolutionised the way businesses accessed funds.

My colleagues and I are often left bemused when we hear claims, from fraud experts from across the world, that machine learning is set to change a business function or disrupt a market. Surely, to be really disruptive you have to put the tools in the hands of the customer so they can model and implement the findings immediately. Adding additional 3rd party manual intervention flies in the face of adopting machine learning.

Start-ups in the capital market space are a small part of the Fintech world, but are finding multiple opportunities to disrupt retail trading.

Customers’ expectations for mobile apps are changing rapidly across the board. And the banking industry just can’t keep up. The 2 billion people using mobile banking apps by 2020 will expect an immediate and seamless user experience.

Robo-advisory, along with artificial intelligence and big data, is a top trending buzz-word. It is the Uber of the professional investment advisory world, eliminating the intermediate role and thus reducing fees for the end-user.

Match borrowers with lenders directly and there is no need for intermediaries anymore. So when digital disruptors squeezed their way into financial services industry, one could think banks were doomed.

Blockchain and Bitcoin technologies look set to change and shake up the course of the digital payments industry. Bitcoin to date is the most successful cryptocurrency and blockchain is what makes it possible, so it is not surprising these two technologies are dominating the eCommerce and payments news space.

According to a recent report from the World Economic Forum, fintechs should start to fear the muscling-in of the tech heavyweights. As Alexa is the personal assistant of choice for several FIs and Amazon powers web content for others, are the tech giants dwarfing the diminutive disruptors?

A race for regulatory talent is about to begin. Regardless of the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, it’s almost certain many UK banks will relocate their headquarters or employees, and European financial capitals will swell in size.

As the digital currency space has evolved and matured over the past several years, U.S. regulatory agencies have, for the most part, sat back and observed – none purporting to exercise jurisdiction over the digital currency space in any meaningful way. This hesitation has stemmed from the novelty that virtual currencies pose to regulators, including the varied nature of the underlying technology and structure and an inability to squarely place them into a singular asset class. Virtual currencies, depending on their underlying framework and liquidity, possess certain features of currencies, securities, commodities, and property.

FinTech is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States and, as with any emerging industry, has and will face growing pains. A specific consequence of such rapid and uncharted growth will be the increase of unfair competition lawsuits, including by those who seek to obstruct changes to the existing competitive structure and otherwise protect their positions. This article identifies and defines the FinTech industry and unfair competition law, examines the impacts that the law of unfair competition will have on this emerging industry, and provides guidance to minimize risk and exposure to unfair competition claims.

Investing in ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) or functional new currencies can be extremely profitable from an investor’s perspective. For companies, it is a crowdfunding alternative that helps them raise funds for new projects. An ICO is an easy and efficient method for startups to generate capital for their new projects.

Today, financial institutions face two major challenges. First, the large volume of highly sensitive information they process, such as credit card data, Social Security numbers and personal identifiers, is highly attractive bait for attackers. Second, financial organizations in the U.S. are supervised by many agencies, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and have to follow stringent regulatory requirements to avoid litigation and financial penalties. Meeting these challenges is taxing, especially when customer demands for service availability keep increasing and IT budgets and staff are both limited.

Sixty-three percent of countries have favorable or mostly favorable regulation of cryptocurrencies out of 60 states studied as of July, 21st 2017. This is a very good sign for the industry. Still there is a lot of room for growth and diligent work with regulatory bodies to make cryptocurrencies widely acceptable.

“We are at the beginning of a revolution that is fundamentally changing the way we live, work and relate to one another,” according to Professor Klaus Schwabb, founder of the World Economic Forum.  In fact he is right, and the revolution is already under way, not least in my industry – private equity.

To support the growth of UK fintech – and to ensure that London retains its fintech crown against stiff foreign competition – the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched ‘Project Innovate’ in 2014. In November 2016, as part of this project, the FCA announced the creation of a regulatory sandbox: a world-first ‘safe space’ designed to allow businesses to test new products and services in an environment with lighter regulatory obligations. The aim of the sandbox is to bring together innovators and regulators, helping the FCA to keep its finger on the pulse of developments in the sector.

Private fund managers are showing an increasing penchant for firing their fund administrators. A new report by Preqin called “Preqin Special Report: Private Capital Service Providers” shows that 36% of fund managers changed their fund administrators in 2016.

There was a time when digital banking was perceived as synonymous with online banking and mobile banking. Financial services industry, along with other sectors, is experiencing an explosion of digitization thanks to smartphones, tablets and access to affordable high-speed internet. The number of smart phone users is expected to equal the number of bank accounts in near future as all mobile users link their bank accounts to their smart phone and get onboard with mobile-based digital wallets and savings platform.

Roy Keidar of law firm Yigal Arnon & Co examines how blockchain could provide the answer to the anti-money laundering issues that crypto-currencies face.

The insurance industry is facing tremendous change and so are the tasks of those working in this field. We talked to Sebastian Heithoff, Marketing Manager at German InsurTech startup versicherungsberatercheck.de – a platform that looks to increase the quality of insurance brokerage and consumer decision making in the digital age.

A year has passed since the UK voted for Brexit. Speculation has been rife on the potential impact that the Brexit vote, and the trigger of Article 50, could have on the London fintech landscape. Thus far London has maintained its pre-eminent position. In fact we are seeing growth of the tech hub in Croydon and further afield in the UK with growth in Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Imagine if one of the large high street banks did actually truly innovate. Imagine if banks were somehow capable of taking the innovative lead from fintech. Imagine if your own bank outdid all fintech companies in speed, service, convenience and cost for all financial services you use, for your current account, payments, foreign exchange, savings and investing, and any other services.

Would you stay with your cutting-edge bank or prefer to use four or five individual fintech companies? Most people would choose the convenient option of staying with their bank, right?

In the not so distant past, enterprise computing relied on monolithic applications to provide access to business functions within an organization. These applications strove to meet all operational requirements through rich and ever-growing feature sets—think ERP systems.

Alternative investments are on a tear, and no asset class has seen more growth than private equity. According to a recent study by eVestment, Assets under Administration (AUA) grew 44% from 2015 to 2016. This influx of capital has caused major ripple effects across the entire private equity landscape, with fund managers competing intensely to attract investor capital.

CFOs are under increasing pressure to demonstrate with certainty that they have full knowledge of data sources used for reported statements, to rule out errors and misreporting. However, due to ubiquitous, uncontrolled and unmonitored use of spreadsheets and end user computing applications, many CFOs are struggling to offer such cast-iron guarantees. Meanwhile the role of the CFO is widely recognized to facilitate and support business strategy so that the organization can achieve its goals and objectives – be it of profitability, capital, growth or anything else. Shareholders and investors cherish these metrics too. Consequently, CFOs are routinely driving transformation projects via acquisitions, on-shoring, off-shoring, financial restructuring and such, to control and improve the business performance of their organizations.

A lack of understanding and of the will to change is often described through the story of the boiling frog. The frog is said to be unable to sense the increasing water temperature and will not search for a way out of his misery – leading to his inevitable death.

A common analogy to the finance sector is the newspaper industry, and rightly so. Finance is quickly shaping up to be remarkably similar. The incumbent banks are the heavyweight newspapers – the Washington Post and Financial Times of the world. FinTechs are to banks what the growing mass of alternative news sources – blogs; e-zines; new digital-only newspapers; social media, most prominently, Twitter; and the increasing relevance of corporate content marketing – is to the incumbent newspapers.

The FinTech revolution has become a worldwide movement in just a few years, with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Global FinTech investments in 2015 were over double that of total investments made in 2014, indicating a surge in interest among different countries to become the FinTech capital of the world.

Ronald Reagan once succinctly summarized the US government’s view on regulation the following way: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it”. Taking the UK as an example, financial technology is worth c.GBP7billion and employs around 60,000 people - safe to say, the sector is on a roll. On top of the direct economic effect, one has to consider fintech’s wider broader economic impact from lowering the lower cost of credit or insurance, improving the level of financial inclusion and reducing financial transaction costs across remittances, payments and investments.

It is not hyperbole to say that the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (a.k.a. “MiFID II”) will have a profound impact on the operations of financial institutions that distribute and trade financial instruments in the EU. In fact, this legislation, which seeks to protect investors by significantly raising the standard for transparency on investment houses, will likely confound even well-intentioned trading organizations doing their best to comply with the directive, much like we are seeing with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Why should my bank start making data-driven decisions? It’s a common question many bank executives are asking as they see the competition leveraging customer data to improve service, better segment, mitigate risk, enhance marketing messages, and drive new business opportunities.

In the past few years, investment in the Fintech sector has been exploding. In fact, between 2013 and 2014, Fintech investing tripled to grow to more than $12 billion per year. This investing is mainly due to the rapid innovation that is happening in the sector.

However, despite the enormous possibility for growth of Fintech, the industry is now facing one distinct challenge; increased government regulation.

• Current rate of decline in cash means UK could be completely cashless by 2043
• Two-thirds (68%) of Brits avoid businesses which only accept cash
• However, expert suggests British government is not ready to commit to being cashless

On 8 April 2015, Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan, wrote to shareholders with the following caution: “Silicon Valley is coming”. This warning is often cited by those predicting the “imminent demise” of traditional banks and the rise of “FinTech”. But, fast-forward two years and Rome has not burned. The big banks are still here, and whilst FinTech continues to disrupt and challenge the financial services sector, the companies that have pioneered FinTech do not dominate the sector and the traditional banks seem pre-eminent as ever. The banks and FinTech have come to realise that they need each other. FinTech can improve bank customer participation and experience, whilst Banks can give FinTech the missing component to their businesses - users.

The recent and unprecedented spike in the number of millionaires in the US has spurred the creation of ever-more Family Offices (FOs) as people of wealth are turning to Single Family Offices (SFOs) and Multi-Family Offices (MFOs) to help them manage their wealth. Many of these offices offer a full suite of solutions including investing, budgeting, insurance, charitable giving, tax & legal services, and more.

Today, financial institutions face two major challenges. First, the large volume of highly sensitive information they process, such as credit card data, Social Security numbers and personal identifiers, is highly attractive bait for attackers. Second, financial organizations in the U.S. are supervised by many agencies, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and have to follow stringent regulatory requirements to avoid litigation and financial penalties. Meeting these challenges is taxing, especially when customer demands for service availability keep increasing and IT budgets and staff are both limited.

We are all familiar with taking a wrong turn or missing a turn altogether while driving and have the GPS navigation system holler at us about recalculating the distance and then suggesting an alternative route. Might that have sounded a little fanciful in the 1980s when people were still relying on printed maps to navigate?

Over the past few years, we've come to realize that lending is no longer constrained to the doors and floors of a bank. Now, with the power of digital platforms, we can lend and borrow through online companies at the swipe of a smartphone. This freedom has significantly impacted the lending and banking as industries, most notably the ability of individuals to obtain loan products. And this is great for consumers and financial institutions alike. In this article, we want to explore how peer-to-peer lending increases the adaptability of financial systems around the world.

“The cloud.” It’s part of the modern lexicon, but what is it, exactly?

Over the past decade or so, the workforce in the United States has been going through some major changes. One of the most significant of these changes has been the rise in popularity of freelancing. In 2005, only 10% of the workforce was made up of non-traditional employees like freelancers and independent contractors. In 2016, however, 16% of the workforce is made up of these alternative workers. By 2020, it is predicted that up to 40% of the workforce may be freelancers.

Merchant banks and acquirers have hit a vendor-shaped wall. The lack of choice in payment terminals is crippling banks who are currently at the mercy of the hardware vendors, and are unable to offer a payment device that meets the needs of their modern merchant customers. For years, there has been no route around for banks and acquirers, but now a pioneering concept is set to put the power back into their hands.

The sharing economy continues to grow and disrupt entire industries.

A recent report published by the Brooking Institute concluded that the sharing economy would become a major part of the global economy.

The financial industry is not new to innovations. As the human civilizations became more and more sophisticated, there was a need to create new financial products to serve the ever-evolving requirements of these complex societies. Technology in the financial sector is also not new and is around for a few decades now. Machine readable cheques, automated data processing, automated teller machines and electronic payment systems made banking easier, accelerated innovations and gave rise to various new financial products in the second half of 20th century. But the proliferation of Fintechs in last decade or so has been driven mainly by the advancements in software and internet. Given that financial services are made up of non-tangible goods (unlike automobiles, oil, housing, pharmaceuticals etc.), the financial services industry is most vulnerable to the disruptions in information technologies.

Everyone wants a piece of the $100 trillion pie. I can rattle off a list of 50 payments companies you’ve never heard of and never will. Companies that do millions of dollars in transactions a day. Everyone has a different niche, a different value proposition - more security, less personal data storage, more rewards, less fees – whatever. You want to pay with the palm of your hand? Yeah, there’s an app for that too. And there’s nothing wrong with any of this. Competition fuels technological progress, and the payments space is in desperate need of progress. Progress to eliminate the pain, cost, and time spent dealing with traditional payment processes.

FinTech is currently one of the fastest growing sectors of technology. It is expected that by the year 2020, investment in FinTech companies will grow to 46 billon USD, while global investment in this sector today amounts to more than 26 billion USD (Statista). Because of their high degree of innovation, solutions originating in East-Central Europe, including Poland, are the subject of considerable interest in the branch and are represented at many international conferences. This year is no exception, and on 7-8 February at Finovate London, we will be able to see some new and interesting FinTech from Poland.

I am very pleased that Mark Carney has robo-advice on his mind. For him to be speaking about a nascent industry, he must believe that firms using technology to help manage people’s money will grow to become a significant part of the market. This is a fantastic promotion of the industry and one I am extremely proud to be a part of as we put the client back into the heart of our service.

However, in his speech he appears concerned about robo-advisors becoming a risk to our well-functioning financial system. The argument is that they may lead to excess volatility or increase pro-cyclicality as a result of herding. I see his attack on robo-advice as misinformed for several reasons.

Banking operations are diversifying, fast. Outsourcers control more of many big banks’ core and non-core operations than ever before. The age of mobility has dawned and vastly increased both the number and the kind of devices that are interfacing with banks’ core systems.

InsurTech well and truly made its mark in 2016, stealing some of the thunder (and investment) away from its big brother, fintech, and with tonnes of exciting start-ups and innovations hitting the market.

So, what does the next 12 months have in store for us?

The financial technologies (FinTech) revolution, which has the potential to disrupt traditional financial services and banking systems in most jurisdictions, is likely to see the cutting of costs and an improvement in the quality of financial services.

Two years back after my trip to the US, I still had a coin of 1 dollar cent in my wallet. In a supermarket in Berlin, mistaking it for a 2 euro cents coin, I presented it to the cashier. The cashier immediately recognized it and returned it to me saying it’s not the right coin and they don’t accept it. Realizing my mistake I presented the right coin. The two coins (1 dollar cent and 2 euro cents) are almost of same size, weight and material. Why couldn’t the supermarket accept it?

According to a recent survey, more than half of banking executives want to improve their social and mobile channels. However, the same survey revealed that over 50% of consumers did not feel their bank knows them as a customer (TimeTrade). The challenge facing banking executives in 2017 is bigger than just shifting budget towards mobile app development and Facebook strategy, it’s the ability to connect the dots across multiple channels resulting in more accurate and relevant communications between a financial institution and its audience. By taking this ground-up approach to marketing, financial leadership can invest in accurate, impactful marketing that drives brand loyalty now and for years to come.

We had the privilege to talk to João Vasconcelos, Portugal's Secretary of State of Industry and former Executive Director at Startup Lisboa, about the thriving tech scene and reasons for fintechs to come to Lisbon. Besides the beautiful landscape and great people, of course.

Banks acting in a manner that leads to distrust of financial services is nothing new. The financial crisis, market rigging and - most recently - a scandal at Wells Fargo show that banks continue to work for no-one but themselves. Mike Galarza, the CEO of Entryless, discusses why banks are untrustworthy and what FinTech firms are doing about it.

Blockchain technologies are attracting increased interest from Russian financial institutions and IT companies, and may be poised to overcome skepticism from Russian regulators. This is perhaps not surprising, given Russia’s prominence in the technology sector, with over 120,000 local programmers and continuing growth in ecommerce and online activities. However, certain legal obstacles may still pose challenges for promoters and developers of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain applications.

We met Brett Myers, Co-Founder and CEO of leading P2P currency exchange marketplace CurrencyFair to talk about Brexit, different types of customers and how banks are not negligent enough to fall behind in the long run.

Interview with João Freire de Andrade, Head of Venture Capital at BiG - Banco de Investimento Global who we met at the WebSummit 2016 in Lisbon last week. João talked to us about the Portuguese startups scene, investing in startups and how this will change banks.

The surge in technology solutions for financial services providers has demonstrably transformed the banking industry: from the ATM to online bill pay to the mobile banking platform, a consumer has little reason to visit a storefront location these days and financial institutions are reaping the profitable rewards of providing solutions that require less in-person contact.

[SPONSORED] Consumer access to financial data has become a hot topic of late—and with good reason. U.S. consumers are embracing a proliferation of digital financial services, spanning everything from alternative lending to automated investing. Innovation in this space rests on consumers’ ability to grant access to their personal financial data, which often sits within a bank or other financial institution. This dynamic has raised difficult questions around security, data, and user experience, to name a few.

Sirpa Nordlund, Executive Director, Mobey Forum, shares key takeaways from the international association’s Mobey Day banking and fintech conference, held in Barcelona last week.

Private funds are the fastest growing category of investments, with estimates of current assets reaching $10T, and projected to grow to $18T by 2020. As the economy has recovered from the Great Recession, more and more investors have entered into alternative investments.

Banks are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. Preparing to squeeze the trigger is an army of agile FinTech businesses. Here, Mike Galarza, the CEO and founder of Entryless, discusses how FinTech - aided by startups - is taking the fight to traditional financial institutions.

Hacking a bank is serious business. This is true in terms of hacking as an illegal activity aimed at getting unauthorized access to data and information. Hacking a bank with the institution supporting the action is another matter. And it is a completely wonderful experience.

2016 has been a big year for advanced analytics. Banks that are already turning customer data into smart, actionable insights see major pay-offs in new business, better customer targeting and segmentation, faster decision-making, efficiencies in operations, and progress in risk management. As the banking industry approaches strategic planning season, it’s time for leadership to think long-term about the bank’s goals and future growth and how advanced analytics can support these objectives. Why should data science and advanced analytics be a critical component to the bank’s 2017 business plan? Consider these compelling reasons:

Whether for business or pleasure, the Internet, social media and digital access to information and applications, are a fundamental and fully integrated aspect of modern life. With so much personal technology now used day-to-day – from smart phones, to mobile applications, to the computerization of everyday activities that we all take for granted - wealth management customers increasingly expect 24/7 access to both digitally-delivered financial information and online assistance.

I’ve talked about how the global financial system is broken and how that freelancers are getting the short end of the stick. The free banking economy goes much deeper than you may think.

Innovation in the United States could be at risk due to a recent patent ruling having a detrimental effect on patent enforcement efforts and obtaining patents on business methods including financial technologies. Certain rulings disfavor patent owners and could hurt many sectors, such as FinTech. In particular, The Supreme Court’s Alice v. CLS Bank decision—has led to the invalidation of a multitude of software and business method patents in the FinTech sector (“pro-infringer measures”).

As the demand for faster and more sophisticated financial trading tools increase it is envisaged that future trading platforms will need to adapt in terms of functionality and flexibility.

Sensational headlines in the media describing Big Data as "the next big thing" somehow do not impress anymore. After all, sensational headlines sometimes are just ... sensational and not necessarily true. Behind all these boosted names and future forecasts the most important somehow lies unnoticed: numbers and the actual operational facts. And we need to turn the focus from talking to rather doing.

For almost 40 years, a key piece of banks’ social responsibility strategies has been related to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the 1977 enactment which ensures that banks are continually addressing the needs of low to moderate income neighborhoods and other underserved areas of the communities in which they are located. The CRA requires that financial institutions are periodically evaluated for these efforts, and this record is taken into account when an institution seeks to open a new location or participate in M&A activities.

Real-time transfer technologies have given rise to a new class of customers in the United States: we call them the Overbanked. The Overbanked are people with open accounts with three or more depository institutions.

We have the web at our fingertips. We connect more and more parts of our lives to the internet. We are moving whole business segments from brick and mortar to the online space. That's not really big news - it is called progress and we observe it with more or less interest day in, day out. With the digitalization also comes a shift in the nature of the services offered to us. Consumers will change, the service landscape will change and banks will need to adapt - which means they will drastically change, too.

A few years ago, marketplace lending platforms quickly gained steam and emerged as Wall Street darlings, promising to bring greater access, speed and efficiencies to all parties involved in the borrowing process – borrowers (small businesses and consumers), the marketplace lenders themselves,  and secondary investors. In recent weeks, however, a series of high profile incidents and disappointing earnings statements have called into question the transparency, stability and viability of the marketplace lending business model. Apparently, the headlines read, it is not time to ring the death knell for traditional banks just yet.

We’ve heard the sensationalism before – That the unbridled array of opportunities in Africa are either being “squandered”, “exploited” or just now seeping to the surface for globalization to capitalize on the ‘Rising Continent’ in timely fashion.

Yamini Kona has around 15 years of experience in Financial Services. She comes with a strong research and business analysis background and has authored various case studies and thought papers in the past.

Paul Bowman from Market Gravity shares his insights on how traditional long-term strategies are dead and banking organisations are finding new ways to innovate quickly.

When thinking about the implications of the gig economy, all industries must take notice of its disruptive nature in order to remain smart and streamlined, adapting to consumer needs. And, they can achieve this mainly by making their workforces more flexible. But particularly how can it affect the traditional finance industry and the new disruptive trend in fintech? The traditional financial industry is one of the anchors of the world economy, but it is undergoing a reinvention thanks to fintech. When you combine two major disruptive shifts -- fintech and the gig economy -- the results are powerful and game-changing.

We interviewed Kevin Bottoms, Global Vice President of TELUS International, about the importance of customer service and experience in financial services and beyond. Customer don't only need to be acquired, they need to be retained – by building trust.

It is generally calculated that businesses must spend between four and ten times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one [1]. With that in mind, we would like to share several strategies risk departments can employ to help deliver a strong customer experience, an important component of customer loyalty.

We were interested in the P2P payment startup Cookies for quite a while now. When we met co-founder Lamine Cheloufi at the Pioneers Festival 2016 in Vienna, it was about time for an interview.

At the Pioneers Festival 2016 in Vienna, we met Maximilian Tayenthal of the rapidly growing mobile banking startup NUMBER26 and talked to him about the evolution in finance and what it means for their business.

We interviewed Raj Singh and Jürgen Hütter from online lender Avant about the reasons alternative lenders gain ground, why the US offers better prerequisites for the business and what the bank of the future will look like.

In London, we had the pleasure to meet with Co-founder and CEO Matiss Ansviesulis and PR-Specialist Viktorija Gorcakovaite from Creamfinance.

Teun von den Dries talked to us about his company GeoPhy and the role of fintechs in the finance sector.

Thomas Joykutty, working at the London office of Deloitte Digital, was part of the “Grid” team at Fintech Connect Live. We talked to him about their project, the terms fintech and insuretech and tried to take a look into the crystal ball.

We met a part of the Scalable Capital team in London: Adam French (Founder and UK Managing Director), Dr. Manuela Rabener, (Global CMO) and Marianne Slamich (PR specialist).

We talked to Michael Mellinghoff, Managing Director at TechFluence. Being a longtime banking professional with several years of experience with FinTech startups, we asked him about some of the key questions in the industry at the moment.

Tel Aviv based startups App Dome offers what they described to us as “Security as a Service”.

New technologies have shown to be a driving force behind new business cases. Most of the time, however, banks are not really pioneers regarding these kind of changes. New providers keep pushing into traditional business areas and use innovative technologies to generate additional value for the customers. Particularly the past year needs to be viewed as a wake-up-call for the banking sector to push its efforts in the digital sector. How can banks react to challenges posed by new competitors like Apple Pay? Taking a look at other industries reveals a lot of opportunities apart from the risks. To use these opportunities, banks need to adjust their strategies smart and consistently.

The finance sector is increasingly affected by the presence of fintechs. But many of these finance start-ups do not really reinvent the banking business. What they do is adjusting it in a way that the customers can make better use of it. Berlin fintech company Bergfürst offers shares of young and growing companies to private investors and offers real estate investments since 2014.

The virtual world created certain new customs. Decision-making is heavily influenced by the digitalization and this is, of course, also true for bank marketing. Customers inform themselves online, exchange opinions in the social networks and post online ratings. What used to be personal correspondence is now anonymous convenience in the world wide web. This online society calls for a new understanding of marketing and the way of dealing with the customer.

BUSINESS CASES Co-Creation - this is the term by which the Consorsbank treads new paths in the retail business: They involve their customers in the development of products and services. Thereby, modern means of communication like Social Media and communities play increasingly important roles in the individual client business. Initial exerience has shown that the customers happily accept the opportunity to make a contribution, which makes the concept a significant step towards the future of banking.

Business Cases The financial industry is currently still trying to catch up on their delayed start into the digitalized future. Technology-focussed start-ups approach different points of the value chain, to optimize digital banking processes. On this basis they develop a great number of business cases, all of which follow a similar goal: to simplify the digitalized everyday life of the customer. Disregarding the threat posed by these companies, established banks can view the digitalization as chance - provided that they adapt to the challenges and cooperate with FinTechs. Sutor Bank developed a start-up platform for fintechs, offering solutions and services which are subject to bank-licensing. This makes them an entry point for founders in the financial industry.

Business Cases The financial industry is currently still trying to catch up on their delayed start into the digitalized future. Technology-focussed start-ups approach different points of the value chain to digitally optimize banking processes. On this basis they develop a great number of business cases, all of which follow a similar goal: to simplify the digitalized everyday life of the customer. Disregarding the threat posed by these companies, established banks can view the digitalization as chance - provided they adapt to the challenges and cooperate with FinTechs. Sutor Bank developed a start-up platform for fintechs: it offers solutions and services which are subject to bank-licensing. This makes them an entry point for founders in the financial industry.

Keywords: fintechs, start-up platform, strategy, digitalization