Issue #360 - The World Needs Decentralization April 21st, 2022

“The world needs DeFi due to corruption”. Cointelegraph shares this article to highlight some simple assumptions: financial instruments have high costs due to a system made up of too many middlemen, while DeFi allow poeple to control their finances while reducing costs.

Gwera Kiwana and Kate Moody are joined by Misha Esipov (Nova Credit), Polly Jean Harrison (The Fintech Times) and Duke Ekezie-Joseph (Kippa) to discuss fintech news, especially Nova’s expansion into Europe and Apple’s plans to conquer the payments market.

It’s not news that Bitcoin mining – as well as the mining process of other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies – need solutions to become more efficient and enviroment friendly: the MIT Technology Review shows what’s the price paid by communities.

After the unsuccessful listing of the first tweet ever on OpenSea, Ron Shevlin shares thoughts and data on what’s happening to the NFT (non-fungible token) market.

Financial inclusion is one of the main goals of fintech: compared to traditional financial instittions, fintech companies manage to be more efficient, to better use data and to offer their clients different communication channels.

Internet of Things (IoT) is being massively adopted by fintech companies and financial institutoins: IoT allows for cost-optimization, better analysis and management of data and innovative tools and payment methods.

TrueLayer, an open banking platform, wants to expand its offer to address the main issues of traditional payment methods: no more long waiting times, uncertainty and risks, but a system based on open-banking that will allow instant operations and the reduction of costs – also for merchants.

According to Aite-Novarica Group, in 2020 at least 47% of Americans experienced some form of identity theft, and according to CNBC $5.8 was lost in 2021 due to frauds. Financial technology is developing new tools to avoid frauds in the future, to allow people to feel safe and prothect their money.

It is expected a new wave of consolidation in the UK fintech industry: financing rounds show that investors are willing to invest more in fintech, and that new technologies – mainly based on artificial intelligence – will be exploited to support the growth of the whole fintech industry.

Fintech firms in the mortgage market are allowing poeple – especially younger homebuyers – to get loans easier, but this might have downsides: the IMF analysis shows that while fintech companies offer more benefits compared to traditional financial institutions, regulators should keep an eye on their business models to avoid a new housing bubble.