Fintech News Issue #160 March 22nd, 2018

The exact nature of collaboration and competition between legacy financial organizations and new fintech providers remains uncertain. Banks and credit unions must continue to explore strategic options, however, as technology changes and regulations evolve.

I know that we deal with quite complicated things in financial technologies. AI, AGI, ASI (Artificial Intelligence, Artificial General Intelligence, Artificial Super Intelligence); machine learning and deep learning; blockchain, shared ledgers and distributed ledger technologies; cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies and digital currencies; Open Banking and Open APIs; and so on and so forth.

Who needs a banking charter, anyway? Not Amazon. The most feared company in America keeps finding new ways to eat into banks’ revenues, even though it is supposedly on the wrong side of the industry’s regulatory moat.

Wading through all the hype, nonsense, and genuine hope for the blockchain revolution at South By Southwest 2018

What if a key piece of cryptography underpinning bitcoin fell apart?

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.

Solar energy is the key to getting power to many parts of Africa, but it is expensive to implement and often difficult for individuals to purchase. So global payments firm Mastercard has teamed up with solar energy company M-KOPA Solar, banks, and mobile network operators to enable payments and commerce for people who don’t have access to banks.

Technology may ease the compliance burden for banks, but it's not driving down compliance budgets, according to Bank Director's 2018 Risk Survey.

With the upcoming EU regulations on big data in the form of the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the way businesses in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the U.S. and other regions handle client data is about to change.

A new report out this week on the state of SME lending in Australia has found while SMEs love the idea of non-bank and alternative lenders, many are still ‘rusted onto their bank’.

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.

When it comes to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England and chairman of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), is known for being a harsh critic.

Banks and credit unions used to think that "service" is what differentiated one financial brand from another. But now, the digital experience is paramount when it comes to separating the winners from losers in the banking industry.

Banks are very private. Secretive, paranoid or aware of the fact that we don’t build with new tech in the most linear, agile and effective way possible. Whatever your favourite reason, we don’t cook in an open kitchen and, even the more PR happy banks, share but a fraction of what goes on.

The banking and financial sectors are on the brink of a fundamental structural change. Compliance regulations have kept these industries trapped in long-overdue legacy systems. Yet, senior executives understood that they need to make a shift towards integrating more technology into their daily operations.

According to Crunchbase Data, $28 billion has been funneled into 3,609 rounds for US-based seed, early and late-stage FinTech related startups since January 2008. Of that $28 billion, $7 billion has been invested since January 2017.

A new market analysis report maps out how the top ten U.S. banks are investing in fintech. This is across categories like blockchain, insurance and lending.

Welcome a new member in the Fintech Weekly family: our new media release platform Fintech Press Releases.