SIA Announces Completion of the Acquisition From Unicredit of E-Money Processing Activities in Italy, Germany and Austria. CEO Massimo Arrighetti: “This operation, sustainable from an economic and social perspective, allows us to strengthen our European leadership and to grow in size.”
The acquisition – effective from 1st January 2017 – concerns the management of around 13.5 million payment cards, 206,000 POS terminals and 12,000 ATMs of UBIS. ICOs and the Consumer-Side Impact of DLT. December 27, 2016 By : Aman Trivedi Over the past two years, distributed ledger technology (DLT) has seen tremendous interest by investors and financial institutions alike.
There have been numerous variants of the technology coming up, both on the enterprise and consumer side. A Look at the US’ Financially Underserved Market and Opportunities. Low-income consumers in US face institutional, policy related and personal barriers to access the financial system.
These underbanked consumers rely heavily on fringe financial service providers to conduct routine financial transactions and pay high fees in the process. The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) is the definitive voice on US consumer financial health. CFSI and Core Innovation Capital have recently come out with their 6th annual market analysis to illustrate the size of the opportunity to address the needs of financially underserved consumers and identify significant trends driving marketplace evolution and growth. The report presents a snapshot of interest and fees spent by underserved consumers, volume of consumer usage generating revenue, Current and projected revenue growth rates and key trends driving market developments.
CFSI research estimates that 57% of U.S. consumers, or approximately 138 million adults, are financially unhealthy. What’s in Store for RegTech in 2017? December 26, 2016 By : Anshu Dubey RegTech has been a famous buzzword in 2016 and the industry – banking and FinTech alike – is looking eagerly at 2017.
RegTech is comparatively a new term used in FinTech to describe a set of companies and solutions that address regulatory challenges across industries, including financial services, through innovative technology. There are more than 6,000 small, medium and large enterprises globally offering governance, risk management and compliance solutions. MetricStream, Nasdaq, Rsam and EMC are among the top players in the GRC technology market when it comes to product offerings. The popular areas for RegTechs in 2016 have been compliance analysis, knowledge and training, KYC, compliance implementation & monitoring and analytics-based reporting – regulatory, transaction and MI.
Bizfi Hits $2B Origination Milestone; Providing Financing to More Than 35,000 US Small Businesses. New York – December 22, 2016 – Today, Bizfi, the premier FinTech company with a platform that combines aggregation, funding and a marketplace on a single platform for small businesses, announced that it has surpassed $2 billion in financing – through both growth and working capital – to more than 35,000 small businesses across America.
The Bizfi.com marketplace was launched in 2015 to provide small business owners with access to multiple financing options from more than 45 lending partners. These financing options include short-term financing, franchise financing, lines of credit, equipment financing, medical financing, invoice financing, medium-term loans and long-term loans guaranteed by the US Small Business Administration. “Every dollar we provide to a small business owner returns multiples of GDP,” said John Donovan, CEO of Bizfi. Y Combinator-Backed Nigerian FinTech Startup Paystack Closes on $1.3M Seed. San Francisco, USA – Monday 19 December 2016 – FinTech startup, Paystack, announced that it had closed on a seed investment of $1.3M from international investors Tencent, Comcast Ventures and Singularity Investments, with participation from Spark, M&S Partners, Tokyo Founders Fund, Blue Rinc Capital, Pave Investments, KIBS-CFY Partners, Michael Siebel, Justin Kan, Olumide Soyombo, Leonard Stiegeler and a number of Angels.
The announcement follows news that the FinTech startup has recently built a payment gateway integration for Shopify, one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms. The Y Combinator-backed online payments platform is solving the considerable challenge of online payment transactions in Nigeria, by seamlessly connecting all multichannel payment options with merchants across the country, enabling them to accept payments from around the world, via credit card, debit card, and direct bank transfer on web and mobile. Gift Card Fraud: Part of a Growing Trillion-Dollar Global Epidemic. December 24, 2016 By : Stephen Ufford ‘Tis the season for online shopping, and business is booming for the gift card sector.
With the gift card industry expected to reach $160 billion by the year 2018, gift cards are only going to become more popular during the holiday season. Gift cards are not only an easy and convenient way to get a little something special for loved ones, but there are endless options on marketplaces where gift cards are sold at a discount, making them even more appealing. 5 Cs of Opportunity in InsurTech. December 24, 2016 By : Shwetank Verma Insurance globally is an industry with scale, with USD 4.1 trillion dollars of premium written in 2015 alone.
It is also an industry on the cusp of change – attracting investor interest in record numbers with investments totaling USD 1.4 billion on InsurTech firms in just the first three-quarters of 2016. However, as I have interacted with various startups, it has become clear that the breadth and scale of the opportunity are not clear to many of them. The mental model of ‘InsurTech’ seems to be limited to the claims part of the value chain only.
In this article, I outline a 5 C framework to help startups navigate the insurance opportunity landscape. Digitization of Financial Services: Doing Things Right is Better Than Doing It All. December 23, 2016 By : Elena Mesropyan Although the value of fraudulent activities in online banking is expected to reach $7 billion by 2020, the focus on digital channels in banking has been only increasing as banks are facing competition from challengers and are looking to cut costs of physical infrastructure maintenance.
DBS estimates that financial institutions that are not able to adopt a digital model may see a drop in ROE by ~18% over a five-year timeframe. However, retail banks that are able to reinvent themselves could see a substantial increase in ROE, around 18%, largely driven by the lower cost of serving customers and the efficiencies they will reap. The New Global FinTech Mumbai Event: RegTech and Blockchain. On December 21, LTP in partnership with Opus Consulting organized a FinTech meetup in Rise Mumbai called “The New Global FinTech Event: RegTech and Blockchain.”
The meetup had attracted over 100+ audience members from Mumbai. The attendees were a mix of bankers, startups and technology aficionados. The theme was centered on the theme of RegTech and blockchain and a couple of keynote speeches. The first keynote speech was Dr. How Open APIs Are Reshaping the Future of Payments. December 22, 2016 By : Hugh Cumming and Vinay Prabhakar Open APIs promise to fundamentally transform the experience of payments for end-users, ranging from private individuals to global corporations. Whether driven by the global rise of FinTechs and real-time payments, or by regulations such as PSD2 in Europe, it’s clear that the momentum towards open APIs is now irreversible. As a result, it will soon be the norm for consumers and businesses to obtain account information and initiate and track payments using third-party applications that connect directly into banks’ systems via public domain APIs.
But this isn’t just a big change for customers – it also brings huge implications for banks, not only around how they source, manage and use payments technology but also around how they differentiate themselves in the payments marketplace. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are neither new nor as complicated as their name suggests. Will IBM Watson Endanger RegTech Startups in 2017? December 22, 2016 By : Elena Mesropyan IBM Watson is probably one of the wonders of modern technological advancements and a crown jewel of the IBM Corp.
The company made its bet on advancing Watson to swoop into a range of industries and in the nearest future, IBM could become the primary player across verticals that startups should worry about. RegTech has been rapidly gaining financial traction and boosting its adoption rates over its relatively short history. Wearable Technology Will Accelerate the Adoption of Biometric Technology. December 21, 2016 By : Elena Mesropyan The biometrics market is expected to experience a substantial growth over the coming years – some estimates suggest that by 2020, global mobile biometric market revenues will reach $34.6 billion annually. European Commission Paves Way for FinTech Growth in 2017. December 21, 2016 By : Rebecca Martin Last month, the European Commission established a Financial Technology Task Force to “help FinTech innovation reach its full potential in Europe” in 2017.
Alongside this, the commission also launched their Start-up and Scale-up Initiative that aims to “give Europe’s many innovative entrepreneurs every opportunity to become world-leading companies.” Is it a coincidence that the Fintech Task Force (FTTT) and entrepreneurial initiative have been launched by the European Commission at the same time? 4 Industry Experts Weigh in on FinTech Predictions for 2017. A week back we published FinTech predictions for Asia for 2017 by Henri which can be read here. We got predictions from four more people who run their own companies and/or are industry experts. Nigel Savory, Managing Director, Bottomline Technologies, on trends he expects to see in the global business and payments space in 2017: 11 Most Popular LTP Articles by Page Views in 2016.
5 Reasons You Should Gift Your Online Store 3D Secure This Year. IoT-Powered Transformation in the Insurance Industry. What FinTech Needs for Sustaining in the Indian Startup Ecosystem. Profitable Payment Methods. The Real Gatekeepers of FinTech are Financial Institutions. December 17, 2016 By : Elena Mesropyan As groundbreaking and disruptive proprietary solutions may seem to their creators, their success in the market is rarely attributed solely to a solution itself – especially when it comes to financial technology. Fundchain Unveils First Insight of Blockchain Proof-Of-Concept for the Investments Funds Industry: The Smart TA. The Luxembourg-based blockchain consortium initiated during the summer is now ready to unveil its first outcomes following six months of collaborative work.
YES BANK Partners FortyTwo42 Labs to Implement State-Of-The-Art Cybersecurity Solution. Quality Data Is a Key Innovation Enabler and a Foundation for AI Adoption. Black Friday and Cyber Monday Conversion Rise May Bite Back at Merchants. Citi Unveils Global Digital Wallet: Citi Pay. Kreditech Raises EUR 10M From Rakuten. 3 Innovative Mobile Banking Features for the Holiday Shopper. The Future of Data Management and Analytics Is in Data-As-A-Service (DaaS) Best of FinXTech Awards to Recognize Collaboration Between Banks and FinTech Companies – Applications Now Open. Top Ways Online Retailers Can Make Shopping Safer This Holiday Season. Starbucks: The Unlikely Winner in Mobile Payments. Flexibility of IT Infrastructure as a Stress Test for Market Viability in Banking.
63 Companies Shaping Africa’s FinTech Ecosystem. The Key To ePlumbing Cipher. 10 FinTech Predictions for Asia in 2017. 88 International Startup Accelerators, Incubators & Innovation Labs Nurturing Innovators in Financial Services. Big Data Is the 800-Pound Gorilla in the Room. 11 Blockchain-Focused Startup Incubators as Unconventional as the Technology. The Illusion of Payment Disruption. An Innovative Nation is a Connected Nation. Can a Unified Identity Become the Most Valuable and Dangerous Asset Ever Created? Wanted: Card Issuers & Merchants to Join Forces With Ethoca to Combat the USD $146-Billion Global E-Commerce Transaction Decline Problem.
The Infrastructure of Infrastructure. Can the Human Body Become a Reliable Layer of Security Between Connected Devices? Interview with Head of Digital Financial Services Solutions at Fujitsu and CEO/Founder of Trunomi. Alternative Data in Financial Services is a Double-Edged Sword. Global Accelerator Startupbootcamp FinTech Lands in Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi to Scout FinTech Talent. Blinker Mobile App Introduces Car Refinancing. Aprivacy: Recording and Security Capabilities over Consumer Messaging Apps.
WorldRemit and Xpress Money Announce Global Money Transfer Partnership. Cashless India: Seeing the Vision for Financial Inclusion Come True – Part 2. P2P Payments: Migration From Apps to Media Channels. Finally, a Gifting Solution That Delivers the Perfect Gift Every Time. The New Global FinTech Event. Voice Is the New OS: Getting Ready for the AI-First World – Part 2. VR Payments Will Take the Technology into the Mainstream in 2018. The Cost of Payments. Santander InnoVentures Invests in Tradeshift. Global. Payments. Innovation. Neosurance Ramps up After the MEDICI Top 21 – Insurtech. Italy Becomes 10th Country Covered by Kontomatik Banking API.
Sberbank and Gett Announce the Signing of a Seven-Year $100-Million Loan Facility to Fund Gett’s Further Expansion. Privacy Is Not Personal, Rather A Community Concern. What Did Financial Institutions in the US Learn From FinTech Startups? Innovation Is Not Always Disruption. IndiaLends Raises $4 Million in Series a Funding From DSG Consumer Partners, American Express Ventures, Cyber Carrier VC and AdvantEdge Partners.
BAAS.IS, India FinTech, SE Asia Startups and FemTech Discussion at Life.SREDA Event Singapore. YES BANK Launches SIMsePAY – Industry-First Innovation to Empower All Citizens to Broad Base Digital Banking. 21 Areas of Blockchain Application Beyond Financial Services. Keeping Millennial SMBs Starts with Better Mobile Business Payments. Of Suits, Hoodies and Ripped Jeans: Transcending the “Expectation Chasm” in Banking. #1 in Global FinTech Insights. Smart Black Friday: A Satispay Payment Every Two Seconds. Corezoid Achieves AWS Financial Services Competency Status for Core Systems Implementations.
Mobile Payments Programs Are on the Rise Among Major Market Participants. India FinTech Awards: The Winners. Voice Is the New OS: Getting Ready for the AI-First World – Part 1. In-Video Payments as the Future of the Mobile Payments Industry. China Leapfrogs the World in Fostering Innovation. How to Go Big: The Experience of Over 50 Most Successful Social Innovators. FinTech in China: A 53-Point Summary. Cashless India: Seeing the Vision for Financial Inclusion Come True – Part 1. How America Gives Gifts in 2016: While Bargain Hunting Is Prominent, Other Factors Influence Shoppers’ Gift-Giving Preferences. UK Black Friday Growth Predicted to Surpass United States, Reveals Global Online Retail Analysis.
Which Are the Top 3 Hottest FinTech Hubs Worldwide? 101 InsurTech Startups Revolutionizing the $4.5-Trillion-Dollar Insurance Industry. Have US Issuers Done Everything They Could to Help Customers Transition to EMV? SDK.Finance Is Announcing a System Architecture Upgrade. Payment Cloud Technologies New bank.VISION Enables An Post to Bring Digital Banking to Customers Nationwide. Blockchain Adoption by the Banking Industry. The Role of Mobile Money in Democratizing International Remittances and Driving Financial Inclusion. 2016 Will Be Remembered as the Year When Data Privacy Was Killed. Israel: The R&D Center of World. FinTech Is a One-Stop Shop. What We Learned About Robo-Advisors in the Last 19 Months. 39% of the World’s Population Does Not Have a Bank Account. What Makes FinTech a Vital Element of the International Ecosystem? [Infographic]
Omnichannels Can Offer Omni-Opportunities.