Fintech News Issue #62 April 5th, 2016

Today, Brett talks to Pat Phelan of Trustev and Paul Siegfriend of Transunion about the developments of utilizing data to give you real time credit decisons, and give business information that make them of greater service to their customers, and the potential uses and abuses of big data.

History suggest that the creation of a new raft of suppliers doesn’t always result in long-term change to a market.

Technology spending in the global insurance industry is estimated to be around $189 billion. By 2019, the spending industry is expected to reach $205 billion.

Over the past year I have come across many blockchain ‘proof of concepts’, that take existing business ideas or challenges and apply a specific technical design (blockchains) to the solution. The usual problem/solution decision process has been turned on its head.

The FCA said in its annual Business Plan, released on Tuesday that it wants to ensure "greater compliance" amongst fintech firms.

With narrow margins and limited cost-cutting options remaining for most banks and credit unions, investing is an improved customer experience may generate a return not available elsewhere.

The FinTech50 is a list produced annually of the 50 European businesses who are transforming financial services. Now in its fourth year, it’s a recognized FinTech brand, generating worldwide interest when announced each year and this year’s list was announced last night.

Last week, Greenfield attended the FinTech Sandbox’s Demo Day, which highlighted some of the exciting FinTech startups which have gone through the program. The FinTech Sandbox connects some phenomenal data partners, accelerator partners and infrastructure partners with startups. The benefit here is that what was once very expensive to get started can now be prototyped and worked on quickly and for free.

This research paper by CommerzVentures explores the five technologies that are going to transform the $4tn insurance industry: connected devices, artificial intelligence, drones, blockchain and new payment systems.

In recent years, investors have poured money into startups, giving 152 of them vaunted "unicorn" valuations of more than $1 billion — and more than a dozen of them are in the fintech space. But now, investors are starting to back off and valuations are beginning to deflate. In the past four months, Social Finance Inc. has canceled its IPO, while OnDeck has seen its valuation fall significantly since its own IPO, for example.

A century ago, countries implemented different standards for most things. Our electricity, roads, governments, taxes, benefits, languages and more are all different. One of the harmonising things of the internet age is that things are all becoming standardised globally.

Banks are quickly approaching their "automation tipping point," and they could soon reduce headcount by as much as 30%. That's according to a new Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (GPS) report on how financial technology is disrupting banks.