Fintech News Issue #164 Wednesday, April 18th 2018 04:59PM

The next generation of cryptocurrencies will be smarter than you think. BitCoin and regulation aren’t two words that usually go together. Ask anyone why cryptocurrencies are a good investment and one of the first words you’ll hear is “decentralized.”


Medium's simplicity and beauty meets our quality contributed articles from numerous industry experts. All new, all fintech. Check out the new design and the best stories from the past months. And don't forget to leave a clap!

Voice-enabled assistants are the newest buzz among consumers across industries with Google, Amazon, Apple, and other giants rolling out AI-infused gears functioning primarily through conversational voice interfaces.

I meet a lot of senior executive teams of large banks. Some are visionary, many are committed and a large number understand that life is changing. Few understand how.

Over the years, I have left radically different people mildly confused by asking them how I can help them. Colleagues, bosses, clients, staff members and tech entrepreneurs have often been stumped when I said “where are you, what do you need, how can I help you get it”.

Amazon Prime is considered one of the most successful loyalty programs in retail history. While many believe the success of Amazon Prime revolves around free shipping, it is really the removal of friction and focus on experience that sets it apart. Banking can learn from Amazon Prime.

Throughout history, banking has remained a closed industry, monopolizing the majority of other financial services. Total digitalization has brought changes to the industry. Fintech firms give users the right to choose an alternative. However, the PSD2 directive adopted in the European Union goes even further. It will disrupt the entire banking industry, completely changing the rules of the game worldwide through massive competition.

The onetime FinTech-versus-bank battle shows major signs of easing from competition to cooperation. According to the 2017 World Retail Banking Report, 91 percent of banks and 75 percent of FinTechs expect to partner with one another in the future.

In an era of chip-based cards and encrypted secured e-wallets, are we on our way to a completely cashless society? Money comparison firm Money Guru has analysed the growing payment trends, how tech is leading the finance industry, and what the future has in store for our spending.

The Paypers has talked with Thomas Rex, VP of the Smartcard Business Line, Fingerprints to find out more about the use and adoption of biometric payment cards.

While initial coin offerings (ICOs) are growing in popularity amongst the startup community, challenges remain for token issuers notably in terms of regulation and cybersecurity, according to PwC.

Amazon Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Amazon, received a patent for a streaming data marketplace that would enable users to receive real-time cryptocurrency transactions data, according to a document released April 17.

One of the dominant themes at the recent Oracle Industry Connect conference was that banking customers are not in a state of transition to digital anymore — they are all digital now.

To understand why blockchain matters, look past the wild speculation at what is being built underneath, argue the authors of The Age of Cryptocurrency and its newly published follow-up, The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything.