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  • user 3:35 pm on August 29, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , technology,   

    BLOCKCHAIN – The Internet of Value 

    Let’s get serious about this hyped #technology: the momentum is now

    The buzz surrounding #Blockchain is comparable to that surrounding the #internet in the early 1990s

    Do you remember the nineties? Everyone was talking about the internet and its potential, about life changing moments, about disruption, but no one could imagine what is possible? And today: our lives changed fundamentally. Everyone is communicating everywhere, new business models emerged – just to name the platform model, perfectly turned into revenue streams by AGFA &8211; Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. The company AGFA overslept this life changing moment: the Internet.

    AGFA

     

    Some go even further to suggest that the Blockhain has the potential to reinvent key institutions. Ten years from now we will wonder how societies could have been survived without the Internet of #Value. But let’s step one step back: What’s Blockchain?

    Blockchain Is Like The European idea

    Blockchain is the technology behind the digital currency #Bitcoin, but Blockchain is unequal Bitcoin! The Blockchain is a kind of super sophisticated distributed ledger that keeps track of things on thousands or even millions of disparate computers, all coordinating with one another. Most simply, the Blockchain protocol is a cryptographically secure system of messaging and recording in a shared database.

    Working in tandem, these systems enable a secure recording, verification and confirmation of transactions without the need of any single entity in charge. To write it in pictures: Today the Internet is an army with generals, we call them AGFA and the future?

    The Blockchain is like the European idea &8211; each encoded and work for the good of the whole: for a common decentral network.

    Blockchain Is a Trust Machine

    Using cryptography to maintain a peer-to-peer distributed, time-stamped and immutable consensus ledger of all past transactions. Each transaction is similar to a ledger item, which is aggregated with other blocks into a block of transactions, each connected to the last and needs to be agreed by consensus before adding to the chain. Transaction records cannot be forged, censored or reversed once a block is added. Transacting without trust and a third party becomes reality &8211; with three main disruptive advantages:

    &8211; Trust: Less reliance on trusted third parties. Reducing or eliminating third party risk as trust is distributed over a decentral network

    &8211; Immutable Record: All participants share and consensually update the record. This permanent record imparts confidence in the provenance of value being transacted and enhances fraud detection

    &8211; Smart Contracts: Self-executing commitments. Obligations codified by smart contracts are easily replicable with the benefit of security, translucency and immutability of the Blockchain

    Welcome To a Digital Borderless World

    As blockchain develops, instead of having an internet that puts information and content online, we will get a system that essentially automates trust and verification. Information we now rely on accountants, #banks, lawyers and governments to do. We will be able to know that anything on a Blockchain &8211; land rights, money, a deed &8211; is authentic and everyone around the world agrees on its value.

    Facts & Figures: Blockchain Has Captured Venture Capital and Global Wallets

    We saw over $ 1.4b in investments over the past three years &8211; just in the first quarter of 2016 VC firms invested globally $ 160m into Blockchain startups, up from $ 26 million compared to the previous quarter regarding CB Insights and KPMG. Three significant funding rounds on Blockchain Startups &8211; Circle with $ 60m (Series D), Digital Asset Holdings with $ 60m (Series A) and Blockstream with $ 55m (Series A) we have seen so far in 2016.

    More than 2500+ Blockchain patents were globally filed over the last 3 years. 90+ central banks are engaged in Blockchain discussions worldwide as well as 90+ corporations have joined Blockchain consorts. Today, the pool of strategics investors in the Blockchain space has expanded from banks and VCs into insurance companies, payments and telcos.

     

    But What Are The Use-cases?

    Today use-cases are about Banking, or challenging the platform model, like Uber and AirBnB just to name a few. The Blockchain has the potential to eliminate intermediaries. Some other fascinating business concepts are about ownership and land rights or redefining the value chain of fair trade coffee. Software enabled contracts, called Smart Contracts, can verify if a job is made, and make the payment without a middleman.

    Some InsurTech companies are even working to leverage Blockchain Technology as a mechanism for providing automatic payouts, particularly in the peer-to-peer insurance space where smart contracts could ensure payouts are made accurately and efficient. A song on the Blockchain could ask you to pay of it before it plays, cutting out Spotify and sending the money directly to the artist &8211; fair trade music! Disruption. Furthermore Digital Identity will be a critical enabler to broaden applications to new verticals for instance a digital system for storing and transferring identity.

    Blockchain Use-Cases

    Graphic: Blockchain Use-Cases (extract), by @jan_wich

    Currently VCs are betting its money especially on Blockchain Startups that are focusing on middleware and services, payments/remittance and capital market solutions.

    Potential and Critics

    The global discussions worldwide are growing significantly, but significant hurdles remain to large-scale implementation. An uncertain and unharmonized regulatory environment, nascent collective standardization efforts as well as an absence of formal legal frameworks draw the current situation.

    The technology has the potential to drive simplicity and efficiency through the establishment of new infrastructure and processes across financial services and data driven businesses. Blockchain is not a panacea, but has the potential to redefine current processes and call into question today’s business models.

    Honestly to catch the real impact of the Blockchain Technology is difficult. But &8211; did we all know about TCP/IP and HTML once the internet had the breakthrough? No! Don’t struggle to understand the technology, search for the use-cases. Trial and Error. The Blockchain is more than a technology. It is a strategy.

    Sources: Own research and ideas, WEF and CS

     

    This article is first appeared on LinkedIn | Featured Image: Fotolia

    The post BLOCKCHAIN &8211; The Internet of Value appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.

    Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH

     

  • user 3:35 am on August 29, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , technology,   

    FinTech DACH News Rückblick der Woche 34 

    Fintech.Li präsentiert hier wöchentlich die wichtigsten #News rund um #Fintech in der Schweiz, Liechtenstein, Deutschland und Österreich.

    Fintech #DACH Top News

    GetSafe-516-350x220

    Sparkassen-Tochter 1822direkt integriert Online‑Versicherungsmakler & InsurTech GetSafe
    1822direkt, Tochter der Frankfurter Sparkasse, und der Online-Versicherungsmakler GetSafe haben heute eine “strategische Partnerschaft” bekannt gegeben. Mehr erfahren

     

     

    Payment Services Directive psd2PSD2 und Acquiring – jetzt wird’s eng für KNBs und Internet-PSPs
    „einen den Transfer von Geldbeträgen zum Zahlungsempfänger bewirkenden Zahlungsdienst eines Zahlungsdienstleisters, der mit einem Zahlungsempfänger eine vertragliche Vereinbarung über die Annahme und die Verarbeitung von Zahlungsvorgängen schließt“. Mehr erfahren

     

     

     

    Wenthin_Teaser-624x326Plattform-Ansatz macht Banken zu Banking-Dienstleistern
    Dieser Beitrag wurde am August 25, 2016 von Katharina Mueller in News zur Veranstaltung veröffentlicht. Schlagworte: Banking as a Platform, digitales Banking. Mehr erfahren

     

     



    finovoFinovo hilft Pensionskassen Hypotheken zu verbergen
    Germany overtook Britain as the fintech funding capital of Europe in the second quarter of the year, with German startups pulling in $ 186 million (£142 million) compared to $ 103 million for British businesses. Mehr erfahren

     

     


    Fotoüberweisung

    Sparkassen kooperieren mit Gini und ermöglichen Fotoüberweisungen
    Ein Gemeinschaftsprojekt der Finanz Informatik, Star Finanz & Gini GmbH. Mehr erfahren

     

     
    fintech bits & banks

    Wir werden andere Banken haben
    Szene-Vordenker André Bajorat spricht über die Frage, wie gefährlich Fintechs für klassische Geldhäuser werden können. Mehr erfahren

     

     

     

    wirecardWirecard and Future Finance bring new student loans model to German market
    Wirecard and Future Finance, an Ireland-based financial #technology company, today announce the launch of a new student financing model to the German market. Mehr erfahren

     

     

    ginmonGeld aus London: Passion Capital investiert in Ginmon

    Passion Capital greift Ginmon unter die Arne. “Mit dem eingesammelten Kapital soll in erster Linie die eigens entwickelte Technologieplattform weiter ausgebaut werden und die internationale Expansion vorangetrieben werden“, sagt Gründer Lars Reiner. Mehr erfahren

     


    ubsUBS digitalisiert das Schliessfach

    Als eines ihrer wichtigsten digitalen Projekte dieses Jahres lanciert die UBS demnächst den UBS Safe – ein Dokumente-Ablagesystem für UBS Kunden. Kundinnen und Kunden können in diesem digitalen Schliessfach wichtige persönliche Dokumente, Bankdokumente und Passwörter sicher aufbewahren. Mehr erfahren

     

    #BITCOIN / #BLOCKCHAIN News


    Blockchain

    Nicht sexy genug: Darum verlassen die Blockchain-Hirne ihre Banken
    Die UBS verliert ihren Blockchain-Vordenker. Der Verlust schmerzt, doch die Schweizer Grossbank ist damit nicht alleine, wie sich zeigt. Was hinter den sich häufenden Abgängen von Fintech-Profis steckt. Mehr erfahren

     


    South-Africa

    South African Central Bank ‘Open&8217; to Blockchain and #Cryptocurrency
    South Africa’s central bank is “open” to cryptocurrencies and blockchain, according to new statements from its governor. Mehr erfahren

     

     

     

    google apple prefer ripple blockchain tech over visa

    Google & Apple Prefer Ripple Blockchain Tech over Visa

    Ripple Labs has created a lot of interest in blockchain technology with its Interledger Protocol (ILP), including from Apple and Google, according to the International Business Times. Mehr erfahren

     

     

     

    arbeitslosIst die Blockchain ein Jobkiller?
    In den vielen, oftmals euphorischen, Diskussionen über die zahlreiche Anwendungsmöglichkeiten der Blockchain wird oftmals eine wichtige Frage außer Acht gelassen. Wenn es die Blockchain ermöglicht viele Geschäfts- und Produktionsprozesse zu automatisieren und Intermediäre zu umgehen, was passiert dann mit den ganzen Jobs? Mehr erfahren

     

     


    WEFWeltwirtschaftsforum: Blockchains als &8220;schlagendes Herz” der Finanzwelt
    Der Hype um die Blockchain-Technik in der Finanzwelt ist groß. Und das ist auch berechtigt, sagt eine aktuelle Studie des Weltwirtschaftsforums. Derzufolge werden die dezentralen Kassenbücher eine zentrale Rolle in der Finanzwelt der Zukunft spielen. Mehr erfahren

     

     

    work-together

     

    Bitfinex bietet Unternehmensanteile gegen BFX Token
    As recently as this year The Bank of England announced their initiative to create their own cryptocurrency. They’ve named it RSCoin. Mehr erfahren

     

     


    bitcoin

    Finanzbranche sieht kaum Zukunft für Bitcoins
    Research powerhouse Gartner Inc. recently announced their “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2016,” which shows that “Blockchain” is in the Peak of Inflated Expectations phase. Mehr erfahren

     

     

    ÜBERSICHTEN / INFOGRAFIKEN / STUDIEN


    biggest vc fintech deals

     

    The 10 biggest fintech VC funding deals so far this year
    Das bedeutet für Millionen Kunden, dass sie künftig erstmals eine Gebühr für die Kontoführung zahlen müssen. Mehr erfahren

     

     

     

    woman power 100

    Women in Finance Power 100 &8211; The most influential financial women on Twitter

    Which Women in Finance are dominating Twitter? Discover the 100 most influential Women in Finance. Mehr erfahren

     

     

    Insurance Technology Market Overview Q2

     

    Insurance Technology Market Overview Q2

    Sector map organizes the Insurance Technology sector into 14 categories and shows a sampling of companies in each category. Mehr erfahren

     

     

     

    Fintech EVENT Hinweis

    Zum Abschluss noch Informationen in eigener Sache von Fintech.LI.

    ‎FinTech‬ Konferenz Liechtenstein 2016

    Das Programm zur Fintech Konferenz in Liechtenstein finden Sie auf der Homepage.

    Fintechnews Leser erhalten einen exclusiven Discount von 20% mit dem Code &8220;fintechnews20&8221;.

    The post FinTech DACH News Rückblick der Woche 34 appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.

    Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH

     

  • user 3:35 pm on August 28, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Medien, technology, Verantwortung   

    Fintech und die Verantwortung der Medien 

    Sobald die #Medien ein Thema für sich entdeckt haben, schnellt die Zahl der Beiträge, die sich mit diesem neuen Phänomen beschäftigen, in die Höhe. So auch bei #Fintech. Insofern also nichts Neues. Problematisch wird das dann, wenn die Medien die nötige kritische Distanz vermissen lassen. In letzter Zeit haben sich die Fälle gehäuft, bei denen Unternehmen von zahlreichen Medien förmlich “hochgejazzt” wurden. Beispielhaft dafür sind LendingClub, The DAO und der Themenkomplex #Blockchain.

    Wie die Studie Wirtschaftsjournalismus in der Krise &8211; zum massenmedialen Umgang mit Finanzmarktpolitik im Jahr 2010 feststellte, unterließen die Medien in ihrer Gesamtheit, die Entwicklung der Finanzindustrie in den Jahren vor Ausbruch der Krise kritisch zu begleiten bzw. zu hinterfragen. Die Autoren kamen zu dem Ergebnis:

    Die kritische Darstellung der neuen Finanzbranche, ihr Wandel von einem Dienstleister zu einer Art Finanzindustrie, die Folgen daraus für das Gemeinwohl, also die Perspektiven von Volkswirtschaft und Gesellschaft waren dagegen kein Thema. Wenn berichtet wurde, dann über die neue Finanzindustrie als Zeichen von internationaler Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und als Quelle für Gewinne und Arbeitsplätze am Standort Deutschland. Hier handelt es sich um eine Perspektivenverengung mit enormen Wirklichkeitsverlusten, die als schwere journalistische Verfehlung einzustufen ist.

     

    Caleb Pershan beleuchtet in The Troubled Tale Of Lending Club And The Problems Created By Glowing Tech Press die Wirkmechanismen des Tech-Reporting am Beispiel von LendingClub. Im Silicon Valley, wie überhaupt im Tech-Sektor, gehe es häufig nur noch um Erzählungen, Narrative. Ob und inwieweit diese mit der Realität im Einklang sind, ist eher nebensächlich; Hauptsache die Botschaft ist cool: Die Welt wird an der neuen Technologie genesen. Probleme, die uns heute noch unslösbar erscheinen, werden sich in nichts auflösen. Die Gesellschaft wird gerechter, die Menschen werden glücklicher: Alles wird gut.

    programming-593312_640

    Image credit: Pixabay

     

    Pershan erwähnt den Bericht Access, Accountability Reporting and Silicon Valley des renommierten Nieman Lab. Darin schildert Adrienne Lafrance an verschiedenen Beispielen die Veränderungen, die sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten im Tech-Reporting ereignet haben. In den 1980er Jahren, als Technologiekonzerne wie Apple noch Exoten waren, war der Zugang zu den Exponenten der Tech-Szene leicht und die Atmosphäre offen, wie bei den sog. Homebrew Meetings:

     

    John Markoff, a long-time #technology reporter for The New York Times, remembers the original culture of Silicon Valley as open and collaborative—even welcoming to journalists. In the early ‘80s, Markoff had access to the Homebrew Computer Club, a legendary hobbyist group whose members included the technologists who would go on to run Silicon Valley. Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, first shared his design for the Apple I computer at a Homebrew meeting in 1976.

     

    Diese Kultur änderte sich in den nächsten Jahrzehnten drastisch:

    Over the next few decades, the people running the tech sector went from occupying a niche cultural and economic space to being some of the most powerful business leaders on the planet. And the culture and influence of Silicon Valley changed dramatically. “Early on, Apple was fringe,” says Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor of Wired magazine. “It was nerdy-techy. The difference now is that these companies are the most profitable companies in the world. This is no longer the sideshow; this is the main show.”

     

    Sobald man in die Sphäre der Technologiefirmen und Startup-Szene gelangt, treten manche Fragen fast schon automatisch in den Hintergrund. Es scheint so, als betrete man eine andere, heile Welt, wie David Streitfeld, Tech-Reporter bei der New York Times, berichtet:

    “There’s a sense, in too much tech reporting, that when you cross the bridge into Silicon Valley, you’re in a world where the old rules of journalism don’t apply. One of the biggest clichés of Silicon Valley is when they say, ‘It’s not about the money. We just want to change the world.’ Sometimes that even may be true. But that’s a reason for better coverage, not weaker.”

    Dass aufstrebende Fintech-Startups sich mit kritischen Fragen schwer tun, durfte das Handelsblatt bei Number26 vor einiger Zeit erfahren.

    n26 number26

     

    Um die Defizite im Tech-Reporting zu beheben, sei, so Pershan – wie sollte es auch anders sein &8211; eine disruption nötig:

    Possibly a good way to disrupt this system is to hire dedicated reporters with a narrow focus, such as on a single company, investigative journalists who can cultivate sources outside that company’s PR department and beyond the scope of its own self-serving narrative.

     

    Weitere Informationen: New Banking und die Rolle der Medien

     

    Dieser Artikel ist zuert auf dem Bankstil Blog erschienen.

    Featured Image: Man Reading via Pixabay

    The post Fintech und die Verantwortung der Medien appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.

    Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH

     

  • user 12:18 am on August 28, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , technology, Vehicle   

    ‘Bankcoin’ Is Not Currency, It Is a Digital Vehicle to Move Money 

    It was announced this week that four of the world’s #banks—Santander, UBS, BNY Mellon, and Deustche Bank—are collaborating, along with brokerage firm ICAP, in order to produce what they’re calling a “utility settlement coin,” or USC, run on #blockchain #technology, originally the rails beneath #bitcoin and now the talk of the financial, corporate,Read More
    Bank Innovation

     

  • user 8:29 pm on August 27, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , technology   

    Is it the Blockchain or the Blockchain Solutions that are struggling in the Financial Services? 

    While the concepts and potential of distributed ledger or #blockchain #solutions are becoming better known, the implementation of them in the financial services has run into some fundamental challenges.

    Is this a fundamental shortcoming of blockchain concepts in general or the current solutions?

    What if there was a new blockchain methodology approach that mitigated the challenges by design as opposed to the current approach of iterative improvements on current, available solutions with diminishing or unrealizable returns?

    The current solutions tackle the issue of confirming a shared ledger by different means.

    • Proof of Work – puzzle solving
    • Proof of Consensus – majority participant voting
    • Proof of Stake – majority value voting

     

    Problem 1: Speed and Logistics

    Beyond the computing power that is required to run these methodologies, all of them introduce latency, capacity constraints, throughput limitations and ever expanding active memory requirements (i.e. scalability issues) on the networks that run them. Current innovations are attempting to speed these processes up or bi-pass them. Some of these methods include:

    Sharded consensus – a divide and conquer mechanism for quicker, fragmented consensus.

    Lightning Networks – transactions agreed off the chain and then recorded to the chain later.

    For their benefits, do these solutions introduce more risk as it relates to control, integrity and protection from malfeasance?

    The core processing of a distributed ledger is the creation and sharing of contracted transfers of value and updates to a shared ledger that records positions of value through those agreed transactions.

    Although it sounds counter-intuitive or even improbable, if there was a means to confirm a ledger’s integrity by the transactions alone and without the need either to gain consensus with other network participants or to involve the network in puzzle solving problem, the computing power of the network would only be dedicated to processing and verifying transactions. The latency, capacity and throughput of the network would then be purely a function of the network participants’ processing and communication hardware.

     

    Problem 2: Reality (Securities and Transactions)

    Cryptocurrencies are wonderful because they are not “perfected” (i.e. held and proven to exist) by a central authority. Any national currency is perfected by a central bank and any security is perfected by a depository, sub-custodian or transfer agent. Any blockchain solution that deals with securities, which are not issued into and perfected by that blockchain’s network, has to have a relationship with the securities’ perfecting entities or it will not work.

    Looking at the publicized blockchain solutions that are being built, they primarily focus on:

    • Repo
    • Syndicated Loans
    • Credit Default Swaps
    • Payments

    The properties that these transactions and markets all have in common is that they are:

    • OTC transactions of…
    • … unregistered securities…
    • …that have a low volume per transacting party and…
    • … predominantly only involve cash transactions.

    These represent the least complex use cases in the industry. However, in most cases, they still have to allow for the posting of collateral or the transacting in the underlying securities and those positions must easily be settled between the blockchain solution and the current markets in conjunction with the securities’ “perfecting” entities.

    While a blockchain solution for the above products may provide benefits, they will be customized rather than holistic and translating them to other types of transactions will be very difficult. Regardless, beyond flexibility, have they solved for the prior issues including: capacity, throughput, latency, ever expanding accessible memory requirements (i.e. scalability issues) and confidentiality?

    The financial services businesses are demonstrably very parochial when it comes to products and functions in the industry. Most of the solutions are customized and pursue implementation paths of least resistance. These practices and behaviors will not create an optimal blockchain solution.

    Is it the temptation to take an off-the-shelf solution and inflexibility that is preventing the realization of a realizable, innovative solution?

    In all the publicized solutions, there are also real, unaddressed challenges of how the market actually works – including short transactions and financing. The obvious use case is market making but what about a Fund Manager selling a security that is on loan by his/her custodian to a Broker who sold it short for margin financing to a Hedge Fund and the settlement of that sale was to a broker who sold it to another investor whose money, for now, is in a money market fund, not in his/her custodial bank account?

    What distributed ledger entry do you reference for securities and cash that you don’t own or can’t point to at the moment of execution?

    Without a consideration for all the above issues, any blockchain solution for the financial services comes up short (no pun intended).

    After a presentation, earlier this year, by William Mougayar, renowned author of “The Business Blockchain” (available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5hK4YKxPSo ), the moderator’s first question after the presentation (at 18:45 into the video) was “What about the scaling issue?”. Mougayer’s response was telling. He basically said that this was a known issue and there are smart engineers working on it and someone will solve for it.

    While altruistically optimistic but not definitive, does that response and the questions above about current solutions’ shortcomings make an extract from a Gartland and Mellina Group press release, made earlier in the year, worth a second read?

    “Blockchain #technology, the new frontier in transaction processing, offers powerful real-world financial applications but presents a number of challenges that must be overcome before it can be adapted to securities transactions. Secure, near real-time trading, settlements, and reporting would significantly reduce the capital requirements and costs associated with enterprise processes #banks and brokerages currently use for post-trade operations.

    Principals at Gartland & Mellina, a management consulting firm focused on the financial services industry, have been engrossed in the research and development of this new blockchain technology application to better approach future client and industry needs. GMG’s Managing Director and Blockchain Solutions Lead in the Financial Services Strategy and Solutions Practice, Paul Dowding, explains, “By understanding the current utilization of blockchain as used in cryptocurrencies, we identified the core challenges involved in applying the technology to the financial services industry as a whole. By resolving these challenges, we were able to design a unique, holistic set of blockchain solutions for the whole industry that is product, transaction and functionally agnostic.”

    GMG’s solution solves the core challenges of applying blockchain technology to the financial services industry by offering:

    1. Flexibility for Coding and Control: We designed a mechanism to create complex, multi-leg, dependent transactions within the primitive, (stacking, read-write, conditional flow) coding logic of blockchain technology
    2. Scalability & Volume: Our innovative blockchain ledger design and approach handles the significant memory, capacity and volume requirements of a high volume and high capacity continuous record
    3. Anonymity and Integrity: The GMG blockchain has the means to retain client and trade confidentiality, even on a shared ledger
    4. Suitable Blockchain Methodology: GMG maintains ledger integrity through a new real time, high volume, low latency processing design
    5. Contingent, transaction legs: We created a flexible option securing the settlement of dependent transfers of different assets such as DVP/RVP (sell-side fills and buy-side allocations), collateral substitution and FX
    6. Financing & liability-driven assets: Our blockchain solution accommodates lending, collateralized and default transactions
    7. Non-Ledger referenced transactions: The blockchain allows for future dated, accrued and short transactions
    8. Interface with Current Markets: Asset value can be transferred between the blockchain and current markets
    9. Interoperability: GMG created a product, process, functional and blockchain agnostic environment
    10. Current Regulatory, Risk, Credit, Custody, Performance & Accounting Reporting: Data acquisition and interpretation is significantly enhanced by blockchain ledgers

    This revolutionary design and approach helps GMG overcome many of the challenges facing the financial services industry today. It addresses growing industry needs for superior security, enhanced data acquisition, quicker transaction times, scalability, and lower costs. John Gustav, Partner of Financial Services Strategy and Solutions at GMG said, “Blockchain technology is considered by many to be the key ingredient to disruption within the financial services industry. It certainly has the potential to create a paradigm shift similar to the way the internet did. Our holistic, product-agnostic approach to blockchain is very different from the other publicized solutions within the financial services industry at this time.”

    With blockchain technology, a decentralized network stores the value of all investor assets in encrypted records. This allows contractual transactions, transfer of value, safekeeping and settlement for asset positions to occur digitally in near real-time without the need for a trusted third party. As forging a transaction, stealing or double spending requires overpowering a majority of the computers across the decentralized network at the exact same time, blockchain has an inherent level of security unavailable anywhere else. “Our patents include a generic mechanism to translate financial services transactions into the blockchain’s simple logic and secure code,” Dowding continued. “Benefits include significant cost reduction, near-real-time settlements, new business, product and revenue opportunities and process, and balance sheet and capital efficiencies.” GMG is currently in discussion with different parties to leverage and develop blockchain capabilities as a utility.”

     [linkedinbadge URL=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulfdowding” connections=”off” mode=”icon” liname=””] is Managing Director, Financial Services Strategy & Solutions Practice at Gartland and Mellina Group and this article was originally published on linkedin.

     

  • user 4:29 pm on August 27, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , technology   

    Why should bank boards care about APIs? 

    AAEAAQAAAAAAAAhXAAAAJDFkMjdhNzNkLWE3MDctNDhlNy1iMzAzLTk5ZWZhMTUwM2Q4Ng

    The discussion around digital transformation in #banking has long revolved around the nexus of technologies that are globally driving this change. Technologies such as mobile, social, big data and cloud computing are surely impacting significantly all industries, but for financial services there are other silent technological revolutions taking place that, at the very least, can massively accelerate the technological disruption occurring in the sector.

    If mobile, social, big data and cloud computing are the core technologies of digital transformation, for financial services the emerging underlying substrate are APIs (Application Programming Interface). Now, APIs have been around ever since someone wrote a piece of computer code that was meant to be reused by someone else and are common parlance in IT. However, the threat of fintechs and regulations such as the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) are elevating the IT lexicon to board-level discussions. Bank boards, in many cases for the first time, are being exposed to IT concepts and jargon that, not only they cannot afford to dismiss, but in effect they need to deeply understand as it becomes a key part of the future of competitive advantage in a digitally transformed industry.

    Why should #banks care about APIs?

    APIs expose banks’ products and processes for use by third-parties. Since banking products are inherently digital and processes already are or can largely be automated, the development of an #API strategy drives three key advantages for banks:

    1. it enables banks to become a part of an integrated and larger value-chain;
    2. it offsets the threat of new entrants by establishing from the onset a “coopetitive” position for traditional banks;
    3. it drives #innovation from within.

    I. Vertical disintegration of banks and ecosystem integration

    The various impacts of globalization and #technology in the financial services industry led to the emergence of niche providers, specializing in key activities of the banking value-chain. Most traditional banks tend to be vertically integrated organizations with relatively fixed cost structures and, as transaction costs decline, some of the key activities in the banking value-chain suddenly become cheaper to procure externally than to execute internally. As a result, we see a move to vertically disintegrate these activities and outsource them.

    With the threat of fintechs and neo-banks looming, an API strategy enables banks to streamline their internal value-chain, becoming at once leaner and more focused, while at the same time, transparently integrate themselves into a broader ecosystem exploring new revenue streams and business partnerships. For instance, consider the ability of a car dealership to provide an immediate loan for a customer at the point-of-sale. In this scenario, the cost of sales would be handled by the car dealership. From the dealership standpoint, they would be able to close a sale on the spot providing great value and a great experience to the customer. Also, consider the fact that this is a contextual sale, where additional products, such as auto insurance with multiple coverages, can (and should) be recommended with increased probability of acquisition by the customer. Now, I’m not naïve to the point of disregarding the many existing hurdles of this or other similar scenarios, such as compliance and legal issues. However, even compliance and legal are prone to disruption by APIs and automation as well as by self-regulating technologies such as distributed ledgers and smart contracts (but that’s a topic for another post).

    II. Healthy coopetition with fintechs and neo-banks

    There’s no longer any question about the threat that fintechs, neo-banks and non-banks pose for the future of traditional banks. After the boom of late 2014, the #fintech “movement” came of age during 2015 and is now competitive across all categories – lending, personal finance, payments, retail investments, institutional investments, equity financing, remittances, consumer banking and more. CB Insights reports that global fintech investment is rising and that Q4 of 2014 was the busiest of the last 5 years with a total of $3.1 billion invested across 214 deals – that’s an average of $14.5 Million dollars per deal. There’s also increased acquisition activity, mostly by established fintechs rather than by traditional banks.

    Additionally, regulations such as PSD2 will inevitably push traditional banks into the playground of fintechs and neo-banks. Strategically, it’s a dangerous place to be in for traditional banks, since most of them are not yet ready to compete with these new enterprises in their own ground. However, with the right invesments, such as APIs and open banking, banks are starting to develop the resources that’ll be a key part of the answer to long-term prosperity in an evolving and growing eco-system. Here are four key areas of cooperation and competition with fintechs and neo-banks that banks can explore in the course of their API/open banking strategy:

    1. Replace costly parts of the bank’s value chain with services provided by fintechs and neo-banks – this can reduce the bank’s cost structure and improve cost-to-income ratios;
    2. Increase the reach of the branch network through partnerships with non-traditional and specialized players (car dealerships, realtors, etc.) and increase the breadth of products by integrating specialized products from fintechs and neo-banks – this can increase share-of-wallet and sales;
    3. Provide OEM financial products and services, acting as the backbone for neo-banks – this can improve operating income;
    4. Traditional banks still have a lot of infrastructure that fintechs and neo-banks don’t have and do not want to have as it will hurt their business model. Banks can provide back-office services that are too costly for fintechs and neo-banks to develop – this can increase the interdependency of these players on the bank, mitigating the risk of their threat.

    III. Looking within for innovation

    It’s true that when talking about APIs and open banking, we usually address it from the standpoint of an outward-facing competitive advantage that can enable incumbents to compete and/or partner more effectively with fintechs. However, looking within traditional banks, we can also find areas where APIs and an open platform can help drive increased performance and efficiency.

    To be fair, through the years banks have made significant investments in IT and in services platforms, primarily driven by interoperability and modernization rationales. The problem with these approaches is that they have mostly been IT-led and for a long time there wasn’t really a great business justification for them so they weren’t typically discussed from the business standpoint as a key strategic investment. Where these investments occurred, banks are now taking a new look at their IT assets and resources and realizing that they are better off than they actually thought. Some of those past IT investments have become key in this new digital economy, particularly when it comes to simplifying business processes and products.

    Internal APIs are also key to driving innovation from within. They can work as a sandbox for internal development of ideas before external exposure to partners and others. In this area we see several banks hosting internal Hackathon events, pairing business and IT people in the development of new digital products and in the automation and simplification of internal processes. Internal innovation is key as the rate of change accelerates in the industry. Simpler processes, new innovative products, and a leaner organization will drive growth and efficiency for traditional banks. I believe that in the short term, we’ll see an increased focus in using APIs to build resilience into the banking business model, whether through innovative products and services, or through the ability to replace internal processes and services with external providers.

    [linkedinbadge URL=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/josealmeida” connections=”off” mode=”icon” liname=”José Almeidaos”] is digital advisor at Microsoft and this article was originally published on linkedin.


     

  • user 3:35 pm on August 26, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Administrations, , Corporates, , EInvoicing, , , , technology   

    Corporates and Public Administrations Look at E-Invoicing to Cut Costs 

    Companies are looking at e-invoicing as a way of saving #costs, according to a new survey by Vereon AG, a Swiss conferences, congresses and professional training courses organizer.

    An online survey conducted by Vereon found that 65% of businesses believe that the saving potential of e-invoicing is high. 27% see it as a driver for other projects aiming to optimize business processes.

    E-Invoicing Cost Saving Potential, Vereon AG report

    Respondents believe that the biggest challenges in implementing e-invoicing in their organizations are internal resistance (21%), compatibility issues (20%) and lack of information (15%).

    Biggest Challenges for E-Invoicing Vereo AG report

    Electronic invoicing, also referred to as e-invoicing, is a form of electronic billing often used by trading partners, such as customers and their suppliers, to present and monitor transactional documents between one another and ensure the terms of their trading agreements are being met. These documents include invoices, purchase orders, debit notes, credit notes, payment terms and instructions, and remittance slips.

    As corporate enterprises and #public #administrations seek to automate business processes, e-invoicing allows has numerous benefits such as reducing costs, errors and time spent on administration.

    Vereon will be hosting the Exchange Summit in Barcelona on October 10 and 11, 2016. The event will provide attendees with the opportunity to learn and share their experiences on a global level. They will also get the chance to meet and connect with experts, thought leaders and professionals in e-invoicing, purchase to pay, e-procurement, supply chain finance, and accounts receivable/accounts payable (AR/AP).

    Among the topics that will be discussed, experts will tackle the potential of #blockchain #technology to disrupt the peer-to-peer process, the state of Public Procurement in the EU, as well as the region’s regulatory framework for e-invoicing.

    Exchange Summit Barcelona 2016 E-Invoicing

     

    E-Invoicing regulation in Switzerland

    In Switzerland, e-invoicing is subject to certain legal requirements under commercial and tax law. The rules require for instance that all VAT relevant e-invoices are digitally signed by one of the four Swiss-admitted digital signature providers.

    That said, the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (SFTA) has moved closer to the general EU rules recently and has approved different ways of accepting e-invoices, according to Deloitte Switzerland.

    The authority requires that the integrity and authenticity of the e-invoices are assured, and that companies establish an internal control system that allows a constant and reliable audit trail between procurement process, e-invoice and payment. Businesses are also required to establish a new procedure-to-pay internal control process, which is regularly audited.

    Many governmental initiatives are currently being implemented, notably by the European Commission. By the end of 2018, public administrations in all EU member states will be required to support e-invoicing and to automatize public procurement processes as stipulated in Directive 2014/55/EU.

    Separately, EDICOM&8217;s R+D+i initiative, driven by the European Commission as well, aims at fostering implementation of the European e-invoicing schema between hospitals and laboratories.

    The initiative is open to healthcare suppliers and public agencies belonging to any of the EU member states.

    In Europe, Finnish #fintech startup Zervant is one of the leading e-invoicing solution providers. Earlier this month, the startup announced a new €4 million funding round to fuel global expansion. This brought the total amount of capital raised to more than €8 million.

    Zervant is used by tens of thousands of entrepreneurs all over Europe. Its core markets are Finland, Sweden, Germany, France and the UK. The company’s revenue is expected to grow by 200% this year, according to EU-Startups.

    According to Mattias Hansson, Zervant co-founder and CEO:

    “There is going to be a tremendous shift towards electronic invoicing in the next 5 years and more accessible financial products for micro enterprises. We want to lead the way in this segment.

    &8220;This investment will help us expand significantly and strengthen our position as the leading invoicing service for small businesses in Europe. We will accelerate growth in our current markets as well as expand into new countries.”

     

    Featured image: Online invoicing concept by Bakhtiar Zein, via Shutterstock.

    The post Corporates and Public Administrations Look at E-Invoicing to Cut Costs appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.

    Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH

     

  • user 3:35 am on August 26, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , investiere.ch, , Minority, , Shareholder, , technology,   

    investiere.ch Closes Financing Round: Zürcher Kantonalbank Becomes a Significant Minority Shareholder 

    The Swiss investment #Fintech platform for start-ups, investiere.ch, has successfully closed another #financing #round. With a substantial participation in the capital increase, Zürcher Kantonalbank has become a new #minority #shareholder of investiere.ch. The financing round represents the largest fintech investment in Switzerland this year to date.

    investiere.ch announced that it has successfully closed a Series B financing round totalling CHF 3.5 million. This capital increase will enable investiere.ch to further develop its investment platform with services and tools related to start-up financing and to drive the platform’s growth. At the same time, investiere.ch has gained an important shareholder in #Zürcher #Kantonalbank, which is a leading provider of start-up financing and has many years of experience in this field. Existing shareholders and other experienced business angels also participated in this financing round.

    Zürcher Kantonalbank

    Image from Zürcher Kantonalbank Facebook

    “With Zürcher Kantonalbank, we have acquired an ideal partner as an investor,” Steffen Wagner, co-founder and CEO of investiere.ch, explains. “Zürcher Kantonalbank has repeatedly demonstrated its innovative strength and its expertise in the area of venture capital and has for many years shared our mission of providing professional financing for start-ups.”

    Martin Scholl, CEO of Zürcher Kantonalbank, commented: “We decided to invest in investiere.ch based on the team and #technology behind the platform. The digitalisation of the venture capital market offers attractive growth potential and also creates opportunities for the further development of our own financing activities in areas such as SME financing.”

    investiere.ch and Zürcher Kantonalbank are among the most active venture capital providers in the Swiss market. Zürcher Kantonalbank has long been investing in young companies. More than a decade ago, it launched its ‘Pioneer’ initiative and since then the bank has invested more than CHF 100 million in start-ups with new and innovative business ideas. This has resulted in the creation of almost 1,000 jobs. #investiere.ch has already provided over CHF 17 million in funding for start-ups in more than 40 financing rounds. There will be no changes to the activities conducted by Zürcher Kantonalbank as part of its ‘Pioneer’ initiative. At the same time, investiere.ch will retain full independence with regard to the development of its business.

     

    Featured image: Pixabay

    The post investiere.ch Closes Financing Round: Zürcher Kantonalbank Becomes a Significant Minority Shareholder appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.

    Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH

     

  • user 9:40 pm on August 25, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Author, , , , technology   

    Blockchain Book Author Appears in New TED Talk 

    #Author Don Tapscott recently helped kick off the TED Summit in Banff, Alberta with a #talk about #blockchain #technology.
    CoinDesk

     

  • user 7:35 am on August 25, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , technology   

    Future of Banks — Platforms or Pipes 

    AAEAAQAAAAAAAAiFAAAAJDQ3ZTRiODRjLTZiNjctNDJmZS1iZTE4LTc5YTQxZmYxMDRkYQ

    Much has been written about the #future of #banking. In the end, it all seems to come down to one question: will #banks become platforms or #pipes?

    In reality, there’s no question at all. Platforms are the winning business model of the 21st century and the banking industry is well aware. In fact, banks have been platforms for decades — #fintech is merely creating the latest set of bank #platform extensions. Earlier incarnations include ATMs and online bill pay for consumers.

    That said, what’s happening today is forcing banks to rethink how fast they extend their platform to avoid becoming just the pipes. The advent of the cloud and the software revolution in Fintech with billions of capital being invested every quarter has brought more innovation to banking in the past two years than it has seen in the past twenty. Still, the current David taking down Goliath narrative surrounding the future of banking and finance ultimately fails to account for the reality of the situation.

    While it often goes unnoticed, a great many fintech startups today rely heavily on banks to enable their innovative services. The success of financial innovations like Apple Pay for instance is happening with a great deal of participation and cooperation between #technology companies and financial institutions.

    This relationship between banks and fintech underscores the reality of the financial services industry’s future. Yes, finance is evolving alongside the accelerating curve of technology, and yes, fintech is driving much of this change, but banks are – and will remain – squarely at the center of the financial universe for quite some time to come.

    For one, banks have been the backbone of the modern economy since its inception. They are far too ingrained in the financial system to be removed within any foreseeable time frame.

    Banks also have deep pockets, infrastructure and experience. Large market caps and long track records are clear signals to customers that banks can weather the inevitable downturn. Startups, on the other hand, are more susceptible to turbulence and market volatility — things banking customers, especially business customers, would rather avoid.

    Big data is yet another boon to banks’ staying power. Banks have been collecting data on customer transactions and behavior for decades. This creates major advantages for banks. When used in the right way, this data can be leveraged to do things like identify customers that are ripe for new payment services or to mitigate and underwrite risk in innovative ways.

    But despite all this, there is one hazard currently menacing banks: disintermediation. Starting with the ATM, technology has been distancing consumers from banks for quite some time. Today, their relationship with the consumer is slimmer than ever.

    Meanwhile, fintech is picking up the slack. While traditional banking experiences can feel clunky, fintech products and services are designed to work with people’s lives and deliver value in new and unexpected ways. These upstarts pride themselves on delivering superior customer experiences — banking that is intuitive, mobile, cloud-based, responsive, available 24/7, you name it.

    Fintech companies are also agile and built for rapid iteration — skill sets banks don’t yet have internally. This allows fintech companies to focus heavily on usability and keeping their user interfaces modern. At Bill.com, for instance, we iterate our onboarding experience every two weeks. By comparison, most banks have outsourced many key functions to third-party service providers like Fiserv and Jack Henry, severely limiting their ability to make product changes outside of rigid, long-term release cycles.

    The comparative lack of innovation by banks is no surprise. For decades, banks have spent most of their resources driving to meet quarterly earnings targets, delivering consistent results and ensuring compliance — the key objectives most highly-regulated, publicly-traded financial institutions must focus on to meet its obligations to shareholders — leaving fewer resources and funds for experimentation, learning and new product development. This makes it difficult for banks to keep up with shifts in customer preferences and behavior the way that fintech can. Banks know this and it is exactly why they are starting to shift their strategies to reflect being a platform and not just the pipes.  

    When banks become platforms for their customers and fintech partners, they increase the value of what they have built over the past several decades and disintermediation on the consumer front becomes irrelevant. Instead, as banks fuse their platforms with fintech, innovation will accelerate creating tremendous value for everyone in the food chain.

    [linkedinbadge URL=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/renelacerte” connections=”off” mode=”icon” liname=”René Lacerte”] is CEO/Founder Bill.com and this article was originally published on linkedin.

     

     

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