And we’re kicking off the week with new details on trading in individual stocks, digital assets such as Bitcoin, 5 expected trends for payments in 2021, UK’s CRM Code, WealthTech, and exploring the role of BigTechs for financial services. Dive into the latest fintech insights. Have a great start of the week!
New records set for trading in individual stock options…
Retail investors rush to find the next stock market unicorn (Financial Times)
James Bianco, president of Bianco Research, explores why stocks have gone up in value so quickly over the last period. The trend is driven by a shift in investor preferences that took hold last spring, leaving many individual investors to abandon actively managed vehicles such as open-ended mutual funds. Some are also beginning to sour on passively managed vehicles including exchange traded funds tied to indices. Instead, retail investors are chasing individual names. Read more
On digital currencies…
Bitcoin may ‘break down altogether’ – BIS chief (Finextra)
According to Agustin Carstens, a BIS general manager, Bitcoin may “break down altogether”. Carstens also disagrees with new stablecoin projects such as the Facebook-led Diem and stated that if digital currencies are needed they should be issued by central banks. In addition, Carsten warns investors on the impediments that digital assets such as Bitcoin may pose. “Investors must be cognisant that Bitcoin may well breakdown altogether,” as it approaches its maximum supply of 21 million coins and faces up to a 51% attack. Read more
Billions of answered daily API calls & the Fintech API economy (Medium)
Efi Pylarinou, Founder of Efi Pylarinou Advisory, shares her concerns in terms of cybersecurity, raised by the rapid developments in API infrastructure for finance and embedded finance. With several cloud providers admitting that the acceleration of the cloud-based API economy needs better monitoring and security, the authentication challenges and risks of abuse are well known. Read more
5 trends for payments…
Payments In 2021: Five Trends Driving Industry Transformation (Forbes)
Jordan McKee, Research Director at 451 Research, explores the rise of digital commerce, the proliferation of emerging payment methods and the development of next-generation payment infrastructure. According to McKee, five particular trends have the potential to make a broad impact across the industry, namely: merchants reassessing the effectiveness of their payment-processing partnerships, fraud-prevention strategies morphing into CX strategies as the mindset around the ‘job to be done’ evolves, embedded finance infrastructure having a breakout year, QR codes striking back, and super apps entering formative years in the US. Read more
On UK’s CRM Code…
Calls for CRM to include PISPs and electronic money issuers (Bobsguide.com)
Aoife Morgan, writer at Bobsguide.com, highlights the newest findings from the review conducted by the UK’s Lending Standards Board, uncovering the barriers of entry for fintechs. The code, launched in May 2019, sets out consumer protection standards for banks regarding APP scams. The CRM code currently places responsibility for the assessment of any claim with the sending firm. However, feedback from the consultation said there should be greater emphasis on the role of receiving firms. Read more
On WealthTech…
Digitalization: The Future of Wealth Management (Finextra)
Venkatesh Padmanabhachari, Co-Founder and Director Maveric Systems, highlights one of the most important factors underlying the digital transformation for WealthTech – the changing dynamics of the potential investors. This analysis underscores the basic principles that wealth managers can follow in order to create a sustainable and smarter digital wealth management ecosystem. As such, client-centricity is a crucial variable, followed by the focus on multi-generational investor needs, building investment models on the outcome instead of product, rethinking efficiency and driving agility through automation, and having an omnichannel thinking, by choosing a hybrid approach. Read more
Case Study: Google and the future of financial services…
Why Google Pay’s reboot signals a major land grab on financial services (FinTech Futures)
Leon Gauhman, Chief Strategy Officer of Digital Product Consultancy at Elsewhen, explains that with the relaunch of the Google Pay app, Big Tech’s competitive threat to both legacy banks and fintechs is about to be realised. By offering a much more ambitious suite of services, the app could be a primary financial partner for young, digital savvy users who have already embraced the search giant’s other products (Gmail, Android, YouTube etc). Furthermore, Google will partner with 11 banks to offer checking and savings accounts inside Google Pay – a service that Google has dubbed Plex. Read more
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