Fintech News Issue #107 March 2nd, 2017

When it comes to innovation, can big, established banks compete with agile startups? Culture is the major barrier to digital transformation for larger organizations, so we talked to execs at the Global CIO Banking Summit to get their insight. Stay tuned for actionable examples on how to change your culture, how to measure this, and where to look for inspiration.

There has recently been a spurt of media coverage on the decisions of challenger banks, including UK-based Starling and Monzo, to mirror incumbents and open up their application programming interfaces (APIs) to third parties.

Cybersecurity experts have revealed that hackers used the source code from a banking Trojan previously released on the Dark Web to create their own version. They embedded the code in two legitimate weather apps and released them into the Google Play Store.

A survey of senior bankers and fintech executives provides a unique perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of the current players and the impact of potential transformation of the retail banking industry over the next several years.

LendIt USA is the world’s biggest show in lending and fintech, and in 2017 the event returns to New York City, taking over the Javits Center on March 6-7. More than 5,000 attendees from over 40 countries will gather to share ideas, network and learn the latest in all things lending and fintech. [Exclusive 15% Discount: FWEEKLY17USA]

SME Banking continues to be highly sophisticated for key players across the value chain including SME Banks, Commercial Banks, State Banks, policies makers as well as credit guarantors.

Today, there is incredible interest in anything that is even remotely related to #Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is dominating the conversation on a variety of levels. Philosophers and thinkers are debating the moral implications and risks for human kind of a world where intelligent machines are ubiquitous.

Our global financial system moves trillions of dollars a day and serves billions of people. But the system is rife with problems, adding cost through fees and delays, creating friction through redundant and onerous paperwork, and opening up opportunities for fraud and crime.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making unending waves, both positive and negative. While some experts are going gaga over its productivity orientation and task precision, a few others are expressing concerns over the social impact due to the loss of jobs to robots.

With the explosion of technology and rapid increase in online spending, a completely digital future is inevitable. In this series, we aim to answer key questions, examine various business and technology trends in the insurance industry, and breakdown critical statistics to help you take your business digital.

Mobile and online banking have already taken their place as conventional banking channels. But banks are constantly looking for new, alternative delivery methods to sell their products and distribute their services. This new channel seems to be application program interface (API) banking.

Currently, the global payments industry is undergoing a paradigm shift with an influx of technology, demographic, and regulatory dynamics. While the customer facing part of the value chain continues to witness high levels of innovation, service providers are still grappling with back-end infrastructure enhancements.

Much of the talk about artificial intelligence in banking has been about how technology can replace some functions currently performed by humans. But AI could help human bankers do their jobs more effectively by giving them quicker access to relevant information than ever before.

Changing market opportunities, phenomenal growth in competition, and an empowered customer base are compelling the age old banking industry to renovate itself. In fact the flexibility and efficiency expected from the banking industry today, make such a renovation almost inevitable.

Many of the technologies we now take for granted were quiet revolutions in their time. Just think about how much smartphones have changed the way we live and work. It used to be that when people were out of the office, they were gone, because a telephone was tied to a place, not to a person.