Viewpoint: The Wider Appeal of Blockchain
The technology that underpins bitcoin has received increased attention in recent months from corporate heavyweights. Here’s how blockchain can further revolutionize payments and related industries.
Industry Comment
Viewpoint: Cross-Border Payments Are Hot; Can You Handle the Heat?
Payments companies hoping to gain market share in the exploding cross-border payments market must be able to meet demands for security, customer service, low costs and simplicity.
Financial innovation – a lifeline for SME funding
Financial innovation is unlocking additional funding for small businesses that have been declined by their bank. Katrin Herrling, co-founder and CEO of Funding Xchange, explores.
Wearable technology in investment banking: watch your money on your watch
How can wearable technology be made popular in investment/wealth management services? We suggest a number of features that can create value and relevance to individual traders and wealth managers, if made available on smartwatch trading apps.
Viewpoint: 3 Holiday Trends that Will Shape Your Fraud Strategy in 2017
As you consider a New Year’s resolution to improve fraud prevention in 2017, remember that implementing fraud prevention at the platform level not only protects your merchants, but actually helps you enhance growth and protect margins and profitability.
Viewpoint: How Bitcoin Technology Could Make Travel Better
Blockchain, the foundation for digital currency transactions, shows the potential to create better passenger ID and cut down on fraud targeted at airline loyalty programs.
Three Implications Card Issuers Must Consider ahead of CFPB Prepaid Changes
Card issuers have only a few months to plan and implement the new CFPB rules. For card issuers looking to control costs and maintain more flexibility, now is the time to investigate on-demand card production and lean on the experts to ensure you meet the October 1, 2017 deadline.
Viewpoint: Prepaid’s Move to Help Canadian Businesses Break the Check Habit
All signs point to the rapid nationwide decline in check use being good for consumers, businesses and the financial system. Payments Canada forecasts that by 2020, virtually all checks written by businesses and governments in Canada will have migrated to electronic payments.
Putting trust in chatbots
Artificial intelligence (AI) interfaces and chatbots could be revolutionary for financial institutions – but only if they strike the right balance between human and machine interaction.
Are we heading for an identity crisis in fintech?
Establishing if someone is who they say they are in today’s virtual world is a major headache for banks and fintechs, thanks to the strict regulations they operate under and the difficulty in providing non-physical, verifiable forms of identity.
Top ten fintech opinion pieces in 2016
Look back at some of the most interesting and thought-provoking opinion pieces on all matters fintech published by Banking Technology in 2016.
US chip and PIN card roll-out – let’s shorten the time to process; where do I sign!
From a technology perspective, the family home has decided to rush headlong into the 21st century. When our home was built we thought we were being extremely progressive in having a Panasonic “4 lines, 10 extensions, PBX” installed with separate lines for my wife and myself and then a line for business and yes, one dedicated line for the fax machine. Cool… but fast forward a decade and a half and with the home up for sale, we were politely advised to take out all those handsets and close the door on the PBX.
Why the Uberisation of the banking industry can’t come soon enough
Building emotional bonds with customers is a strategic imperative, and why the change programmes currently being undertaken at banks need to recognise the hidden lessons of Uber.
Viewpoint: Frictionless Payments: Will They Become a Mirage?
Regulations requiring two-factor authentication could force the industry to move away from frictionless payments experiences like Uber and one-click checkout.
Viewpoint: Combating Fraud with Teamwork
The IRS reports that there’s been a nearly 50 percent drop in fraudulent returns, and there has been significant progress in stopping fraudulent returns before refunds are ever paid, due in part to new information provided by industry and state partners.
Blockchain: a real opportunity for retail financial services
Given the pace of change and innovation underway in traditional industries it would take a brave person to predict how the finance industry will look in five years’ time, however I don’t believe high street banks will disappear and be replaced by online blockchain alternatives, the regulatory hurdles are just too high.
Viewpoint: Tapping the Power of Prepaid
Prepaid will continue to be a key ingredient in bringing 2 billion people worldwide into the financial mainstream. But over the past five years, we’ve learned that public-private partnerships are mission-critical. And we’ve still got work to do.
Viewpoint: The Year in Review and a Look Ahead to 2017
The market is evolving from being dazzled by the flashy lights of innovation to buckling down and implementing plans to address the opportunities ahead. Emphasis is shifting from talking about the cool stuff to driving adoption of the most actionable innovations. Are you investing in the right trends?
Viewpoint: The Case for B2C Digital Payments
As consumers start using mobile to pay each other, it’s only natural that they’ll expect businesses to pay them that way, too. For those of us who serve corporate clients, enabling electronic payments to those mobile-centric consumers is a significant opportunity.
Viewpoint: Winning the Prepaid Loyalty Challenge Is about Financial Empowerment
Having achieved status as a “mainstream” financial services product, prepaid cards now must prove themselves indispensable to cardholders’ lives. To take prepaid to the next level, prepaid providers need to connect with and engage cardholders in ways that position the product as vital to their financial wellbeing.
Viewpoint: How Older Millennials’ Love of Selfies Is Transforming Mobile Payments
While you might think younger millennials are more likely to make a purchase from their mobile devices, more likely to snap a selfie and more likely to want to use selfies for ID verification, in fact a new survey found just the opposite.
Time has proved good for HPE and NonStop; banks everywhere can run networks, 24×7!
Having spent many years in the technology wilderness, has HPE finally determined the future of NonStop? Thinking about the more than 40 years that have passed since we were first introduced to fault tolerant Tandem Computers, particularly considering what transpired following the acquisition of Tandem Computers by Compaq and then Compaq by HPE, did we anticipate that there would be an expansion of the NonStop product portfolio? And to see not just one, but two distinct families of NonStop systems and with the possibility of further options featuring NonStop just around the corner? It is surprising to many that all this time hasn’t taken the sheen away from any of the magic that is NonStop!
Weapons of mass distraction: worrying about the wrong fintech revolution
Reading the technology news these days you could be forgiven for thinking that some seismic revolution is occurring almost every day! Stories abound of Airbnb, Facebook, Uber, Alibaba taking over the world and demolishing our traditional business models – ushering in a new age where the “interface is king”. But are they revolutionary and game changing disruptors? I am not so sure…
This isn’t the end of the advisor: why tech won’t cut out the middle man
Who do you trust with your money? Well, if the latest talk in personal finance is anything to go by, we’ll soon be placing our trust in an altogether less warm-blooded beast. Move over mankind: the robots are coming. But not so fast!
It’s time to talk ATM 2.0
The ATM is one of the most recognised and trusted pieces of technology on the high-street, but as it too has come under pressure from the wave of digitalisation sweeping almost every aspect of our everyday lives. The humble ATM is no longer a single physical touch point…
APIs: open for business
No longer are the mid-tier banks doomed to be extinct! The arrival of open application programming interfaces (APIs) will enable them not just to survive but to prosper, states Chris Truce, director of platform development at Saxo Bank.
Creating a hyperconnected corporate bank of the future
Banks are not competing with banks anymore, but against the ubiquitous, all pervading unified digital experience, which is driving the adoption of digital across the corporate banking value chain. Fintechs are a great example of how innovations in digital can deliver speed to market, a superior customer experience and better pricing.
Artificial intelligence is fact, not fantasy!
Parth Desai, CEO and founder of Pelican, discusses why artificial intelligence (AI) is already fact not a fantasy, but cautions that we need to be realistic about what can really be achieved on the journey to true AI adoption in transaction banking and payments.
FIS execs talk payments’ future
From payments robots to data analytics and customer engagement, find out what got FIS payments execs excited at Money20/20.
Viewpoint: California as a Model for Legislation on Responsible Lending
California already has a way to protect consumers from predatory lending practices while also encouraging the kind of innovation that leads to increased access to responsible and affordable credit—especially for those most often left out of the financial mainstream.
Viewpoint: The CFPB’s Prepaid Rule Makes Positive Changes, but Compliance Challenges Remain
Oct. 5, 2016, the CFPB released its final rule governing prepaid accounts. The final rule and its commentary come in at nearly 1,700 pages. Find out what products are covered under the rule, what triggers Reg Z and what still needs clarifications before the regulations go into effect Oct. 1, 2017.
Testing environment for Bitcoin exchanges
Amidst tightening regulations, the latest hack of the Bitfinex Bitcoin exchange has highlighted ongoing difficulties for the sector. Bourn Collier, associate, and Oliver Yaros, senior associate at Mayer Brown International LLP, explore. A few years ago media reports in Britain drew attention to the unfortunate plight of James Howells, a Welsh IT worker who had […]
Editor’s Letter: Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
Last night the Cubs proved—after a long and grueling fight—that the narrative can change. New winners can be crowned. Who in payments will come out on top in 2017? Will it be you?
Viewpoint: Money20/20: The End of Payments as We Know It
The conference, which concluded last week, showed that retailers face significant payments challenges as consumer behavior changes, and gave a deeper look into wearables and other technologies that promise to make transactions much more efficient.
Viewpoint: Most Americans Are Banked. So Why Aren’t More of Us Financially Healthy?
Banked households—those that have at least a checking or savings account at a bank or credit union—have risen to 93 percent. That’s the good news. But a whopping 57 percent of U.S. households are financially unhealthy, and that financial health impacts even those earning middle-class incomes and beyond.
Viewpoint: Fintech Is Driving Inequality in the Digital Economy (And 3 Ways to Reverse the Trend)
Instead of leveling the playing field, the Great Fintech Revolution is driving inequality between those with easy access to the digital economy and those without. Luckily, there are some simple but significant ways to change that.
Banks, stop thinking about branches as a place to transact
How would you respond if someone were to ask you: “What is the purpose of the bank branch?” For decades, the first answer may have been: “To allow customers to conveniently transact with the bank and manage their accounts”. This model has now changed drastically, and banks that still operate as they used to will very quickly yield to more forward-thinking competitors.
Is risk management broken? If so, how can it be fixed?
Financial crises are not new, but the global financial crisis of 2008 exposed the over-leveraged interconnectedness of our modern digital age. It reflected the failure of a laissez-faire economic and regulatory philosophy that had increasingly influenced policy circles during the past three decades; that banks could and should manage their own risk with little outside […]
Is customer loyalty dead in banking?
In an age of increasingly high consumer expectations, driven by ever increasing customer choice, the term “customer experience” has become more than a simple buzzword. Used as a key brand differentiator for all types of industries, it has emerged as a crucial tool in driving customer loyalty in the long-term. Irrespective of whether you are […]
The changing co-branded credit card landscape
As retailers across the country need to bring innovative customisation and convenience factors to their customers, credit cards are becoming an essential part of delivering value. Co-branded cards continue to play an important role in the retail landscape and can offer a unique point of distinction for retailers in today’s competitive environment.
