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FinTech Weekly Magazine

  • Why are fund administrators getting fired at alarming rates?

    Private fund managers are showing an increasing penchant for firing their fund administrators. A new report by Preqin called “Preqin Special Report: Private Capital Service Providers” shows that 36% of fund managers changed their fund administrators in 2016.

  • Digital Banking - Old Wine in New Bottle?

    There was a time when digital banking was perceived as synonymous with online banking and mobile banking. Financial services industry, along with other sectors, is experiencing an explosion of digitization thanks to smartphones, tablets and access to affordable high-speed internet. The number of smart phone users is expected to equal the number of bank accounts in near future as all mobile users link their bank accounts to their smart phone and get onboard with mobile-based digital wallets and savings platform.

  • Can Blockchain be the Key to Overcoming the AML Challenge in Crypto-Currency?

    Roy Keidar of law firm Yigal Arnon & Co examines how blockchain could provide the answer to the anti-money laundering issues that crypto-currencies face.

  • The troublesome future of brokers: Interview with an InsurTech marketer

    The insurance industry is facing tremendous change and so are the tasks of those working in this field. We talked to Sebastian Heithoff, Marketing Manager at German InsurTech startup versicherungsberatercheck.de – a platform that looks to increase the quality of insurance brokerage and consumer decision making in the digital age.

  • London’s Fintech Scene Post-Brexit

    A year has passed since the UK voted for Brexit. Speculation has been rife on the potential impact that the Brexit vote, and the trigger of Article 50, could have on the London fintech landscape. Thus far London has maintained its pre-eminent position. In fact we are seeing growth of the tech hub in Croydon and further afield in the UK with growth in Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh.

  • Why Banks Can’t Help But Help Fintechs

    Imagine if one of the large high street banks did actually truly innovate. Imagine if banks were somehow capable of taking the innovative lead from fintech. Imagine if your own bank outdid all fintech companies in speed, service, convenience and cost for all financial services you use, for your current account, payments, foreign exchange, savings and investing, and any other services.

    Would you stay with your cutting-edge bank or prefer to use four or five individual fintech companies? Most people would choose the convenient option of staying with their bank, right?

  • Microservices: Redesigning the Lego

    In the not so distant past, enterprise computing relied on monolithic applications to provide access to business functions within an organization. These applications strove to meet all operational requirements through rich and ever-growing feature sets—think ERP systems.

  • How to get Private Equity “out of the dark ages”

    Alternative investments are on a tear, and no asset class has seen more growth than private equity. According to a recent study by eVestment, Assets under Administration (AUA) grew 44% from 2015 to 2016. This influx of capital has caused major ripple effects across the entire private equity landscape, with fund managers competing intensely to attract investor capital.

  • CFOs will drive transformation to align EUC models and enterprise systems

    CFOs are under increasing pressure to demonstrate with certainty that they have full knowledge of data sources used for reported statements, to rule out errors and misreporting. However, due to ubiquitous, uncontrolled and unmonitored use of spreadsheets and end user computing applications, many CFOs are struggling to offer such cast-iron guarantees. Meanwhile the role of the CFO is widely recognized to facilitate and support business strategy so that the organization can achieve its goals and objectives – be it of profitability, capital, growth or anything else. Shareholders and investors cherish these metrics too. Consequently, CFOs are routinely driving transformation projects via acquisitions, on-shoring, off-shoring, financial restructuring and such, to control and improve the business performance of their organizations.

  • "Banks, don’t behave like the boiling frog. You won’t get out alive."

    A lack of understanding and of the will to change is often described through the story of the boiling frog. The frog is said to be unable to sense the increasing water temperature and will not search for a way out of his misery – leading to his inevitable death.

  • Will Banks Ever Learn? Erm…

    A common analogy to the finance sector is the newspaper industry, and rightly so. Finance is quickly shaping up to be remarkably similar. The incumbent banks are the heavyweight newspapers – the Washington Post and Financial Times of the world. FinTechs are to banks what the growing mass of alternative news sources – blogs; e-zines; new digital-only newspapers; social media, most prominently, Twitter; and the increasing relevance of corporate content marketing – is to the incumbent newspapers.

  • MiFID II Compliance: Putting Communication into Context

    It is not hyperbole to say that the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (a.k.a. “MiFID II”) will have a profound impact on the operations of financial institutions that distribute and trade financial instruments in the EU. In fact, this legislation, which seeks to protect investors by significantly raising the standard for transparency on investment houses, will likely confound even well-intentioned trading organizations doing their best to comply with the directive, much like we are seeing with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

  • 5 Important Lessons Learned About Fintech from an Industry Insider

    The FinTech revolution has become a worldwide movement in just a few years, with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Global FinTech investments in 2015 were over double that of total investments made in 2014, indicating a surge in interest among different countries to become the FinTech capital of the world.

  • 
The Big Pay-Off Of Advanced Analytics in Banking

    Why should my bank start making data-driven decisions? It’s a common question many bank executives are asking as they see the competition leveraging customer data to improve service, better segment, mitigate risk, enhance marketing messages, and drive new business opportunities.

  • Do Regulatory Questions Threaten the Rise of Fintech?

    In the past few years, investment in the Fintech sector has been exploding. In fact, between 2013 and 2014, Fintech investing tripled to grow to more than $12 billion per year. This investing is mainly due to the rapid innovation that is happening in the sector.

    However, despite the enormous possibility for growth of Fintech, the industry is now facing one distinct challenge; increased government regulation.

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PSD2: The Implications for Banks and Online Businesses

    On 8 April 2015, Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan, wrote to shareholders with the following caution: “Silicon Valley is coming”. This warning is often cited by those predicting the “imminent demise” of traditional banks and the rise of “FinTech”. But, fast-forward two years and Rome has not burned. The big banks are still here, and whilst FinTech continues to disrupt and challenge the financial services sector, the companies that have pioneered FinTech do not dominate the sector and the traditional banks seem pre-eminent as ever. The banks and FinTech have come to realise that they need each other. FinTech can improve bank customer participation and experience, whilst Banks can give FinTech the missing component to their businesses - users.

  • 2043: The year Britain will turn cashless
    • Current rate of decline in cash means UK could be completely cashless by 2043
    • Two-thirds (68%) of Brits avoid businesses which only accept cash
    • However, expert suggests British government is not ready to commit to being cashless
  • Why technology-enabled Fund Administrators will become a bigger force with Family Offices

    The recent and unprecedented spike in the number of millionaires in the US has spurred the creation of ever-more Family Offices (FOs) as people of wealth are turning to Single Family Offices (SFOs) and Multi-Family Offices (MFOs) to help them manage their wealth. Many of these offices offer a full suite of solutions including investing, budgeting, insurance, charitable giving, tax & legal services, and more.

  • Digital Finance Platform Innovation and the Effect on Lending

    Over the past few years, we've come to realize that lending is no longer constrained to the doors and floors of a bank. Now, with the power of digital platforms, we can lend and borrow through online companies at the swipe of a smartphone. This freedom has significantly impacted the lending and banking as industries, most notably the ability of individuals to obtain loan products. And this is great for consumers and financial institutions alike. In this article, we want to explore how peer-to-peer lending increases the adaptability of financial systems around the world.

  • Internet of Things & Financial Services – The Future is Already Here

    We are all familiar with taking a wrong turn or missing a turn altogether while driving and have the GPS navigation system holler at us about recalculating the distance and then suggesting an alternative route. Might that have sounded a little fanciful in the 1980s when people were still relying on printed maps to navigate?

  • The Cloud

    “The cloud.” It’s part of the modern lexicon, but what is it, exactly?

  • How the Future of Work Will Impact Fintech

    Over the past decade or so, the workforce in the United States has been going through some major changes. One of the most significant of these changes has been the rise in popularity of freelancing. In 2005, only 10% of the workforce was made up of non-traditional employees like freelancers and independent contractors. In 2016, however, 16% of the workforce is made up of these alternative workers. By 2020, it is predicted that up to 40% of the workforce may be freelancers.

  • The Open Ecosystem – How Banks Can Keep Pace with Fintech Disruptors

    Merchant banks and acquirers have hit a vendor-shaped wall. The lack of choice in payment terminals is crippling banks who are currently at the mercy of the hardware vendors, and are unable to offer a payment device that meets the needs of their modern merchant customers. For years, there has been no route around for banks and acquirers, but now a pioneering concept is set to put the power back into their hands.

  • New Kids on the Block: Where Fintech Meets Sharing Economy

    The sharing economy continues to grow and disrupt entire industries.

    A recent report published by the Brooking Institute concluded that the sharing economy would become a major part of the global economy.

  • Don’t compete with Fintechs; Build your business on top of them

    The financial industry is not new to innovations. As the human civilizations became more and more sophisticated, there was a need to create new financial products to serve the ever-evolving requirements of these complex societies. Technology in the financial sector is also not new and is around for a few decades now. Machine readable cheques, automated data processing, automated teller machines and electronic payment systems made banking easier, accelerated innovations and gave rise to various new financial products in the second half of 20th century. But the proliferation of Fintechs in last decade or so has been driven mainly by the advancements in software and internet. Given that financial services are made up of non-tangible goods (unlike automobiles, oil, housing, pharmaceuticals etc.), the financial services industry is most vulnerable to the disruptions in information technologies.