Fintech News Issue #145 Thursday, December 7th 2017 09:47AM

Money talks. So how can banks continue to communicate with customers on an emotional level as technology continues to increase the physical divide?

Digital fluency and a thirst for convenience are making the UK’s borrowers more capricious and cost-sensitive than ever. Interest rate rises, and new regulations will add fuel to this fire next year, and lenders that can’t keep up will get burned in 2018.

The financial industry has long been plagued by org charts built around departmental silos. In banking, everyone works on their own initiatives with separate goals. Seldom is there collaboration between teams. Sometimes, the competition between departments can be downright adversarial.

An explosion in available data on consumers, and the ability to process this data for intelligent recommendations, is creating an exciting transformation in financial services. Organizations that can leverage this opportunity will be in a position to provide personalized financial and non-financial recommendations that were impossible just a few years ago.

Open banking is set to have a major impact on the SME financing sector, opening new ways for small firms to connect to innovative fintech services.

The battle for the banking customer has never been more heated, with competition using the latest in data, technology and highly targeted marketing as the weapons of choice. To win, legacy financial institutions must win the hearts of customers with experiences that rival the best in fintech and big tech organizations.

Who are the custodians of change in financial services, and why do they find it so hard to break the structures of old? Story by Leda Glyptis.

The old guard and the upstarts need to show some give and take to move forward together: Comment

The current payments landscape is moving at a blistering pace. Mobile payments, for example, is a market growing at a 39.2% annual clip, and it will be worth nearly $3 trillion by 2020. At the same time, it’s almost impossible to keep up with the growth in the blockchain world.

Op Ed: “We Never Thought of That” — Although not fully intuitive, some have labeled token issuances by entities that previously obtained equity financing as “Reverse ICOs.”

Financial Technology (fintech) has seen a lot of venture capital funding over the past few years. How have its funding trends evolved over time? Through the insights derived from our fintech research platform, we conclude that the fintech sector is maturing.

Imagine taking a regular smartphone and turning it into a payment acceptance device with a simple app download. That’s the utopian dream many companies are chasing today and it could bring huge benefits to the payments ecosystem, merchants and consumers as card and mobile payments continue to grow.

Continuing our preview of our new Trends 18 report, today’s chart highlights how the race to get a foothold in emerging markets is reshaping the mobile payments landscape.

A year after Spiros Margaris last spoke to bobsguide, we invited him back to see whether his predictions for 2017 had come true. We also talked about whether ageism is an issue in fintech and what exactly is needed to make a successful startup, as well as which ingredients make the best technologies.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been ignoring the bitcoin phenomenon for years — because it seemed too complex, far-fetched, or maybe even too libertarian. But if you have any interest in a future where the world moves beyond fossil fuels, you and I should both start paying attention now.

There is little doubt that the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles will have a huge impact on the automobile insurance industry.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved beyond merely capturing our imaginations – it is now replacing jobs, it is augmenting our skill sets, it is driving new discoveries on a daily basis – AI is already here, but why?

Insurers are counting on real-time technology to help them cut back payouts, from a system warning ships of nearby pirates to an app offering to buy sleepy drivers a coffee on the motorway.

There’s an old trope in the West that India is like Indian trains — exotic, lurching and slow. But tropes can be bad as a business strategy — and this trope is causing American companies to miss out on Indian moonshots and trillion-dollar opportunities.