Fintech News Issue #77 July 21st, 2016

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?

Tens of thousands of banks across the world use more or less the same traditional system – transaction databases maintained separately, in-house. Blockchain promises the vision of all banks hooking up to one distributed ledger. Same goes for securities trading firms, underwrites, stock exchanges and insurers. Blockchain can be a true game changer if financial institutions can get rid of individual networks by adopting a near universal distributed ledger.

“The most significant trend of 2016 will be the ‘platformification’ of banking, where both existing banks and startups begin a strategic shift towards becoming banking platforms, much like how Amazon is a platform in retail.”

I was having a debate yesterday where a bank executive was asking me about what the hottest things in FinTech are right now. My answer was machine learning (AI) and blockchain. There are others such as contextual commerce, voice recognition and digital assistants, but machine learning and blockchain are top of mind.

In the wake of the Brexit vote to Leave, we asked London based FemTechLeaders to share their thoughts on the impact the results of the referendum will have on Fintech and Banking. Leda shared her initial thoughts with us just after the vote. After the subsequent weeks of speculation and the change in government leadership, we asked her to expand on her insights, explain her rationale, and share her opinions on why Brexit will have a profound effect on Fintech.

There's a demographic shift in progress, and the Millennial segment is the center of attention. The financial services industry needs to be prepared to serve this increasingly valuable, yet less loyal generation.

Can a New York edge be a nationwide edge? Amalgamated Bank is betting on it.

Chris Skinner looks at the recent Pokemon Go phenomenon and how Sberbank is using the game to full effect in its marketing strategy.

Last year Juniper predicted there would be five billion biometric-authenticated payment transactions by 2019, up from less than 130 million in 2015 (as you can see in our State of Fintech infographic). According to new data from Visa, biometric adoption is certainly on the right track.

Blockchain and biometrics could be the way forward for the future of the UK’s regtech industry, according to the findings of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).