Fintech News Issue #58 March 9th, 2016

Bitcoin has often been dismissed as the currency of criminals and frauds, but those in the FinTech space have thought differently for a long time. Even when they didn’t defend bitcoin explicitly, the interest in blockchain has only grown. And bitcoin is performing better against the US dollar than any other currency.

This week, Brian, Faisal and Mike discuss the coming of age of Robots & AI and what it means for us. We touch upon the various conferences we will be attending, covering and speaking in. The undocumented work, couple that with the recent news of the eliminating the US $100 Bill, what does all this mean. What has history taught us about value transfer and control.

Has Brexit fallen at the wrong time for fintech in the UK? Ian Anderson looks at the pros and cons, and chooses his side of the fence.

When will fintech simply become tech again? Duena Blomstrom looks at the concept of the fintech bubble.

Who, what, where, when of the fintech industry today – this excellent infographics pulls together plenty of useful data, from top specialists, unicorns and start-ups to geographies and M&As.

Chris Skinner provides an overview of new banks popping up in the UK, as well as India and China. The question is, can they all do well?

2015 was a big year in banking technology, with new technologies and disruptive entrants to the market changing the way financial transactions are conducted for good.

Some of the biggest success stories in business are examples of people and firms who used market turmoil to their advantage, adapting to change to become even more successful.

Once, banks vied to offer everything a customer needed under one roof. Now, banks just need to figure out how to be the kitchen — the favorite room in the house.

The Bitcoin community is in a bit of a civil war; I hope readers whose eyes glaze over at the crypto-currency’s mention will bear with me as I explain what is going on, and why some of the fundamental ideas in question matter broadly.

Last week’s news that MasterCard was exploring an investment or outright acquisition of VocaLink really lit up the “News” channel on our Slack system at Glenbrook. - See more at: http://paymentsviews.com/2016/03/08/scheming-and-processing-faster/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter#sthash.1vBHqZw1.dpuf

Recently Google announced that it is piloting an app called Hands Free which allows its mobile payment (Android Pay) users to pay in stores quickly and completely hands-free, through a voice command. The company stated that with this pilot, it wants to explore what the future of mobile payments could look like.

It’s being predicted that by the end of this year, mobile payment transactions in the U.S. will grow 210 percent. Despite this impressive gain, it turns out that not everyone is taking advantage of mobile payments.