Intel to Develop Blockchain Projects at New Innovation Lab in Israel
Tech giant #Intel has opened a development lab in Tel Aviv focused on financial technologies like the #blockchain.
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Japan’s Trade Ministry: Government Should Promote Blockchain Use Cases
Japan’s #Ministry of Economy, #Trade and Industry (METI) has released the results of a survey on #blockchain #technology.
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DeinAnlageberater.ch Leverages Technology to Offer Investment Advice for Less Than 5 CHF
#DeinAnlageberater.ch came to existence upon the assumption that people take decisions in an emotional fashion, often leading to bad results when it comes to investing.
By leveraging #technology, DeinAnlageberater.ch provides users with personalized #investment advisory services and recommendations for asset allocation at a much lower price #than traditional investment advisers.
Image via https://www.dein-anlageberater.ch/
How it works
First, DeinAnlageberater.ch asks you a number of questions to understand your current financial situation and learn more about your preferences regarding certain topics (asset classes, risk, etc.).
Image via https://www.dein-anlageberater.ch/
Then, the platform creates a personalized suggestion for investment based on your profile. These recommendations are very detailed and specific, making it easy for you to eventually transact the different components of the suggestion with your bank branch or online broker.
The process is fast and sleek, and the platform itself is well designed and user-friendly, making the overall user experience very good. New users get one free credit for an investment #advice.
DeinAnlageberater.ch doesn’t #offer bank accounts or brokerage services. It doesn&8217;t accept payments or kick-backs from product providers, and solely focuses on applying its algorithms to determine the best investment schemes for users. This way, there is no conflict of interest.
The company explains:
“If a financial advisor is paid by the product provider and not the client, he will naturally not put your interests first but those of the product provider. He then owes more to the bank which employs him than you. If he puts your interests above the interests of his employer, i.e., the bank, he risks his job.
&8220;Your interests and the interests of the bank are in conflict. This is why advice, free of such conflicts, can only be given by an independent institution which isn’t in the business of providing products and doesn’t run any checking or brokerage accounts.”
DeinAnlageberater.ch is typically used as a benchmark and basis for discussion with a financial advisor.
The platform makes money by charging between 2.43 CHF and 4.99 CHF per recommendation (depending on the plan you pick).
DeinAnlageberater.ch has the ability to offer such low prices because it doesn&8217;t &8220;own expensive offices or run costly advertising for prestige’s sake,&8221; and because it essentially uses digital communication channels to serve and advise multiple customers at the same time.
Headquartered in Altendorf, Switzerland, DeinAnlageberater.ch was founded by Simone Rebholz, a former banker with a background in capital markets and the mortgage business; and Dr. Claus Huber, a financial expert specialized in risk management and quantitative modeling of financial markets.
Watch DeinAnlageberater.ch&8217;s video presentation (in German):
The post DeinAnlageberater.ch Leverages Technology to Offer Investment Advice for Less Than 5 CHF appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
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Smart Dubai Director Sees Blockchain as Key to Connected Cities
The head of #Dubai‘s #smart #cities drive spoke on how she believes #blockchain can help drive the city’s modernization efforts yesterday.
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Credit History Is a Digital Asset in an Underserved Market
Adult life in the US is highly dependent on your #credit #history. Your credit history, which is sourced from 3 credit bureaus and checked against the US overdrawn database; is your #Digital #Asset! Wake up to this reality! One of the largest #underserved segments in the US, are individuals thatRead More
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Augmenting Me
I have spent time lately exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Assistants (VA) & Chatbots and how these can be used within a bank – after all I invest in #fintech so this revelation should not shock anyone. The purpose of this post is not share my findings on these discoveries, what works, what does not, what a bank should do, what hot trends I believe in and which startups I am interested in backing. Rather, my purpose is to share my personal views on how I would like “#technology” to augment me. Note that I refrain from writing &8220;how I would like AI to augment me&8221; as I am unsure if AI is the right term for what I am seeking.
I do not differ from the majority of my fellow human beings in as much as I want to be better. A better husband, a better father, a better friend, a better co-worker, a better investor and a better expert at what I do daily. I meditate, I exercise empathy, I exercise physically, i exercise humility AND I exercise my brain. I think and I think about becoming a smarter and sharper thinker.
So far I have seen AI applications and startups focused on:
&8211; Automating repetitive tasks
&8211; Automating simple tasks
&8211; Helping with making expert decisions
&8211; Removing human biases
&8211; Navigating through mountains of data
The benefits, actual or promised are obvious. AI will free us from mundane tasks so we can focus on higher value thinking, will eliminate our human weaknesses, will point us to the right decisions, will shorten the time to right actions. Cheaper, faster, to the point. Why am I not completely satisfied? Maybe because I sense a &8220;dehumanizing&8221; threat lurking behind the promise of AI. After all, I could end up ceding some of the tasks I currently perform to an automaton, stop thinking about certain tasks and analytical processes because another automaton will give me the answer faster and end up relying on various algorithms without exercising any critical thinking &8211; and critical thinking is my most precious asset!
I spend most of my time reading and listening what others write and say and scrutinizing what they do. I thrive on induction and deduction, cross referencing, linking, making inferences, aggregating, sorting and ultimately decisioning. The more data I digest the better. The faster and more accurate I am at linking various data points intelligently and decisioning thereafter the better. Freeing 20% of my time from my daily schedule via the use of a VA or another 20% of my time with the use of an expert system is not going to move the needle materially. Actually I view these as potential linear changes. I will be able to do more of the same during the week. Big deal, so what.
To date I have evolved several techniques to manage and push myself. I take breaks when I feel fatigue lurking. I play games or perform mental gymnastics when I want my brain to work in different ways (mostly chess, educational & training apps), i alternate between reading blog posts, tweets, lengthy articles, books (e-books and real books), i alternate between subject matters, i alternate between writing on a piece of paper and typing on my computer, i doodle (i wish i knew how to draw), I label and save data for future reading or re-use, I consume media during downtime (music, movies), I continuously doubt and double check myself… All of these I have developed over time. Still I believe I have scratched the surface and that my &8220;tools&8221; are far from perfect &8211; I make mistakes, I forget, I contradict myself.
What I am looking for is technology that a) trains my mind to process data faster over longer periods of time while minimizing productivity losses due to fatigue, b) helps identify my blind spots and allows me to mitigate them over time, c) identifies the best way for me to digest data in the right way at the right time, d) helps me recognize my biases, and e) helps me become more creative and innovative in my thinking. I believe the technology or set of technologies that will help me achieve these goals will accelerate my thinking more than linearly.
Rather than interpreting AI and robotics as a Man vs Machine contest &8211; and by that I mean where a machine or algorithm abstracts certain tasks and alienates them from me &8211; or as a Man fusing with Machine end goal &8211; man as cyborg frightens me and i do not believe in singularity &8211; I am much more interested in a Man and Machine narrative where I get augmented by a &8220;cognitive&8221; machine.
Would it not be amazing if my personal VA would alert me to the bias I just exercised when analyzing a data set, would present me data in different formats to stave off brain fatigue or optimize my learning based on what it knows about how my brain works and my current physiological state, would present me with potential inferences and linkages from the past and the present so that I could more easily make further linkages and inferences on top of previous ones, would exercise my brain to better recognize conscious and subconscious signals, present me with the right data in the right context for major ha-ha moments &8211; as opposed to triggering a consumerist stimuli or a mere call to action &8211; would learn with me and adapt to my progress, would provide me insights on how I arrived at past insights and innovative moments or decisions and finally would be designed in a way that I would trust it and therefore allow myself to collaborate with it and learn from it &8211; i think both form and function are important here.
Absent a deep knowledge of the current state of cognitive computing and AI, I assume the above is a science fiction wish list. I realize my yearnings are a far cry from the explicit state of AI I see embodied in the various tech platforms startups are bringing to market. My view is that most of the approaches I have been exposed to are very mechanistic &8211; a natural state due to the limits of technology and knowledge of the human brain I gather. I wonder if the technology behind Viv is a step towards this wish list.
I remember dreaming in 1997 about a device that would allow me to do everything a computer, a cell phone, an encyclopedia, a notebook, a canvas & paintbrush, a camera, a tv and a movie theater could do. Clearly, I was not impressed by the Palm Pilot then. It took 10 years for me to see this dream materialize with the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007 and another 9 years to see it refined til now. I wonder how long it will take for us to graduate from the elementary AI platforms of today to ones that will truly augment us. Even though the rate of technology advance is accelerating I wonder if the next exponential leaps will occur at a relatively slow pace due to the infinite complexity of the brain.
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Breaking Banks: Fintech Future — Cyborgs and Digital Currency
In this episode, Brett King is hosting one of the leaders in global #technology revolution, David Orban. David is a fierce proponent of financial and government transparency. He is a founder/trustee of the Network Society Research, member and advisor of Singularity University, as well as the founder of Dotwords. Today,Read More
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Banks, this is your Über moment
In case you missed it, 2016 is quickly becoming a year to remember in digital disruption of financial services. The two momentous events you need to look at are #DBS launching their mobile-only Digibank in India, and the upcoming launch of O2 Banking, the mobile lovechild of a startup and telco (#Fidor & Telefonica).
What’s the story here? A sea change of digital banking.
These aren’t mobile banking apps.
These are mobile-only #banks.
This is your Über moment
You might be wondering what separates a startup like Fidor from a bank? Both offer a banking app. Both have banking licenses. Walks like a duck, talks like a duck?
Cost. Massive, immovable cost. Human. Material. Immaterial. Everywhere. Glossy branches. Tellers. Automatic and human. Office towers with fountains. Commissioned sculptures. Armies of lawyers. Committees. Armies of middle managers. Committees about having more committees. Armies of auditors that audit the other armies.
Banks spend an average 65% on branches, yet only 12% of interactions happen there
Just like Über and taxi companies. Both have apps. Only one has massive fixed costs that prohibit scale. The other is mobile-only. Just a digital platform, that can scale almost infinitely. Ask yourself, are they on equal footing to compete in today’s marketplace? Tomorrow’s marketplace?
Learn from DBS, or lose your footing
Do what DBS did. It’s really that simple. They’re also a bank. They have branches, offices, fountains and tellers too. Yet they decided to try, well… not being a bank.
Digibank is a real digital bank. Mobile-only. No branches. Just an app. See here’s the difference with mobile-only. When you sign up, you don’t go to a branch. You tap. And you’re done.
If a million customers decided to join DBS Digibank today, at the same exact time, it would take them a grand total of 90 seconds to become customers.
Let that sink in… it stings, doesn’t it? How long does it take your bank to onboard a million customers? More than 90 seconds? Try 90 months. You’re toast.
If their Digibank experiment works in India, do you think that’s the end of the story? Think again. In fact, it’s an extremely savvy insurance policy against disruption. If things go all Über, they’ll be right there, positioned to benefit. Positioned to remain relevant. Positioned to stay alive.
If you wait, Telefonica will teach you a hard lesson
The onslaught is already under way. In cubicles around the world, developers are hatching their evil plans to launch digital banks. They didn’t ask your permission. They don’t sit on your committees. They don’t work for you. They don’t work for your competitors. They work for startups, telcos, eCommerce giants, chat apps, you name it.
They’re going to make you look like a taxi company. What are you going to do about it?
[linkedinbadge URL=”https://sg.linkedin.com/pub/aki-ranin/8/b9b/719?trk=cws-ppw-member-0-0″ connections=”off” mode=”icon” liname=”Aki Ranin”], is Commercial Director at Tigerspike and this article was originally published on linkedin
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Fintech Opens IPO Window with BATS and says sorry about earlier IPO fluffs.
Image courtesy Westwick Partners The IPO #window has been shut down for a while. The January crash put a padlock on that window. According to Renaissance Capital, 22 IPOs raised #about $ 3.5 billion up to mid-May, which is down 63% by deal count from the same period last year. The IPO window is starting to…Read more #Fintech #Opens IPO Window with #BATS and #says #sorry about #earlier IPO fluffs.
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Dubai’s Global Blockchain Council Unveils First Pilot Projects
Members of Dubai’s #Global #Blockchain #Council (GBC) unveiled seven new proofs-of-concept at industry conference Keynote 2016 today.
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