And we’re kicking off the week with new details on crypto, money transfer, fintech funding, payment process, debt crisis and more. Dive into the latest fintech insights and have a great start of the week!
The growth of African neobanks (FXC Intelligence)
In recent times, emerging markets such as Africa have been rapidly evolving in digital-first financial services, including digital banking and payments, despite limited economic resources. In particular, African startups offering technological innovations for the finance industry are increasingly operating solely online, with companies catering to a wide range of applications having emerged across the continent. Key services include current and savings accounts, ecommerce checkout, money transfers, fundraising, investments, payments, donations and loans, although different fintechs are focusing on different areas. However, they are united in serving demand that has traditionally been unmet in the continent. Read more.
Google Finance Head: Anything That Can Be Automated, We Strive to Automate (WSJ)
Alphabet Inc.’s Google is working to automate as many finance tasks as possible as it looks to reduce the amount of manual work that its employees have to do. The Mountain View, Calif.-based software giant is using a combination of tools, including artificial intelligence, automation, the cloud, a data lake and machine learning to run its finance operations and offers programming and other training to its employees. Read more.
Fast-Moving FinTech Poses Challenge for Regulators (IMF)
Technology sometimes moves at a dizzying pace. When it comes to innovation in financial activities, often referred to as FinTech, the world is seeing major advances. For banks, FinTech disrupts core financial services and pushes them to innovate to remain relevant. For consumers, it means potentially wider access to better services. Such changes also raise the stakes for regulators and supervisors—while most individual FinTech firms are still small, they can scale up very rapidly across both riskier clients and business segments than traditional lenders. This combination of fast growth and increasing importance of FinTech financial services for the functioning of financial intermediation can come with system-wide risks, which we cover in our latest Global Financial Stability Report. Read more.
Why Big Tech is Driving the Fintech Digital Ecosystem (Fintech Magazine)
The expert view on how Digital ecosystems and how Big Tech is redefining the financial services space by expanding the digital ecosystem
Big Tech first pioneered the concept of business ecosystems to monetise its technology platforms and customer relationships. Ecosystem-based strategies are primarily collaborative models, set up with the knowledge that no business by itself can address all the needs of its customers, and a collective of businesses is much better-positioned to do so — especially in a digitally disintermediated world. Read more.
FinTech IPO Index Braces for Further Turbulence as Q1 Earnings Season Kicks Off (PYMNTS)
At some point, with the FinTech IPO Index down nearly 27% year to date, one wonders where the bottom is. We may still have a leg downward, if earnings season is as bumpy as initial signs indicate. Thus far, only a few days into the actual earnings reports, and with a shortened trading week, we haven’t seen any earnings reports yet from our crop of more than three dozen names that have IPO’ed since just before the pandemic. But the commentary that’s come from the big banks — bellwethers of financial services, of course — gives one pause. Read more.
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