Introduction to the article

In a new paper on Building Open Finance: From Policy to Infrastructure, leading academic experts Douglas Arner, Ross P. Buckley, Christine Menglu Wang, and Dirk A. Zetzsche explore the global landscape of Open Finance, analysing how different jurisdictions are implementing Open Finance systems around the world. The paper highlights key international approaches such as those in the European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, UAE, China, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States. The paper argues that globally there is a trend towards increasingly mandatory approaches, with best results when combined with supporting standards and infrastructure to enable data sharing. The authors argue that going forward, maximizing the value of data requires a new level of digital public infrastructure.

The objective of this paper is to provide insights that can be shared internationally, contributing to the global development of Open Finance systems increasing competition, innovation, and consumer empowerment in financial services​.

About the Key Contributors: 

Douglas Arner, Kerry Holdings Professor in Law at the University of Hong Kong

Douglas Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law and RGC Senior Research Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development at the University of Hong Kong, where he is also a Senior Fellow of the Asia Global Institute, Associate Director of the HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy, a Member of the Management Committee of the Techno-Entrepreneurship Core, and Faculty Director of the Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship Programme (LITE). He is a non-executive director of NASDAQ-listed early-stage biotechnology development firm Aptorum Group, a Research Affiliate of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, a Senior Fellow of the Program on International Financial Systems and of the University of Melbourne School of Law, a PRIME Finance Expert, and an Advisory Board Member of the European Banking Institute, SuperCharger Ventures, Global Impact FinTech Forum (GIFT), Policy 4.0, Alliance for Innovative Regulation, Digital Education Council, and Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE). 

Douglas has worked with governments, central banks, financial regulators and international organisations around the world on strategies to support financial sector development. He has served as an advisor with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UN, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Douglas leads the largest FinTech online course on edX: Introduction to FinTech, with over 130,000 participants drawn from (almost) every country in the world. He has published twenty books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on finance, technology, regulation and development, including most recently FinTech: Finance, Technology, Regulation (Cambridge University Press 2024, with Ross Buckley and Dirk Zetzsche). 

Ross P. Buckley, Scientia Professor at UNSW

Ross P. Buckley is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at UNSW Sydney, where he leads a $3.7 million, seven-year research project focused on regulating the data revolution. He serves as a member of the Payments System Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia, chairs the Digital Finance Advisory Panel, and is on the Consultative Panel of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Over his career, he has consulted with government departments in 14 nations, including the United States, and ranks among the top ten most frequently downloaded legal scholars of all time on the Social Science Research Network. Twice a Fulbright Scholar, he has held positions at Yale and Duke.

Christine Menglu Wang, Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Law, the University of Hong Kong

Menglu Wang is a Post-doctoral Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development at the University of Hong Kong. Her current research explores the digital transformation of finance and its regulation across various jurisdictions, with a focus on the potential of financial technology (FinTech) and regulatory technology (RegTech) to drive sustainable development.

Dirk A. Zetzsche, Professor in Financial Law ADA Chair in Financial Law (inclusive finance) at University of Luxembourg

Prof. Dr. Zetzsche, LL.M., is Professor of Financial Law at the University of Luxembourg where he holds the ADA Chair in Financial Law (inclusive finance) since March 2016 and leads the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance’s House of Sustainable Governance & Markets. Professor Zetzsche also functions as one of the Directors of the Center for Business & Corporate Law at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and is Visiting Professorial Fellow at UNSW Sydney (appointed 2021-2024). His current research focuses on inclusive and sustainable finance as well as financial and corporate law, in particular on payment and banking systems, collective investment schemes, institutional investments and FinTech/RegTech/CorpTech.

The history and development of Open Finance 

Open Finance has evolved from Open Banking and is characterised by the sharing of customer-permissioned data across a broader range of financial services providers, not just banks. This shift allows new entrants, like FinTechs and BigTechs, to develop innovative financial services. 

Open Finance promotes competition by breaking data silos and empowering consumers to share their financial data with third parties. When we look at different jurisdictions to implement open finance systems around the globe they are at various stages, different approaches and governance frameworks.

Different approaches and governance frameworks

• Mandatory approach: EU, UK, Australia, Brazil, and UAE have adopted a mandatory framework where financial institutions are required to share customer data via APIs. This approach aims to enhance competition and innovation by facilitating secure data sharing between financial institutions and third-party service providers​
• Collaborative approach: Singapore and Hong Kong are examples of jurisdictions using a collaborative approach, where financial institutions and regulators work together to establish standards and promote data sharing without legal mandates. The focus is on encouraging industry participation and developing API standards
• Other approaches: China and India have broader data ecosystems being developed. These jurisdictions focus on the aggregation and sharing of data across different sectors, beyond just financial services, to promote innovation and competitiveness​

Open Finance governance faces significant challenges, including regulatory fragmentation, where multiple regulators involved in financial regulation, data protection, and competition policies may cause conflicts. Data localisation laws in certain jurisdictions restrict cross-border data transfers, potentially hindering the global efficiency of Open Finance systems. 

This paper aims to unlock the full economic potential of data and emphasises the importance of transitioning to Open Data with requirements to achieve such as harmonised regulations, data interoperability, and tackling challenges such as data sovereignty and localisation with the important highlights on digital identity and consent management systems as key infrastructure.

About CFTE

Founded in 2017 in London, the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) is a global platform for education in FinTech and the future of financial services. More than 100,000 professionals from 100+ countries have participated in CFTE programmes to accelerate their careers in finance. CFTE’s objective is to equip professionals and students with the skills to thrive in the new world of digital finance. 

Contact

Contact: learning@cfte.education

Europe: 30 Churchill Pl, London E14 5RE, United Kingdom

Middle East: Cloud Spaces, AI Sarab Tower, Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi

Asia: 80 Robinson Road, Singapore

The post Building Open Finance: From Policy to Infrastructure appeared first on CFTE.

Traditional banking is evolving to open banking for growth recognition to increase external parties’ relationships, produce new product offerings and business models, and extend customer demographics. Below, are the top four Open Banking and Platform trends to look out for in 2022 from our CFTE experts:

1. Open Banking Trend Paved a New Path for SME and MNC from Huy Nguyen Trieu

Huy Nguyen Trieu obtained a Msc in Technology and Policy. He is the Co-Founder of CFTE, CEO of the Disruptive Groupm Singapore Fintech Festival Ambassador, Venture Partner of  Alma Mundi Ventures and Advisory Board in the Digital Tech Fund of the Expon Capital.

Instead of having companies vertically integrated, we have companies upscale and connect people. For example, Uber, an app that connects customers with drivers as good UX. 10 years ago, the top financial institutions were mostly banks. Now there are 5 banks and 5 leverage platforms, for instance: Visa, Mastercard, Ant Group, Paypal, and Tencent that have been conquering the finance world. The race is on for the organization to expand, for instance, Visa acquired Plaid on Jan 11 2020 for $5B to advance network strategy due to the open banking infrastructure of plaid. However, after a year, Visa abandoned the planned acquisition and bought Tink, Swedish fintech for $2.2B in June 2021.

Another is in Dec 2020, Intuit bought Credit Karma who follows Google Model but in Finance. The rise of embedded invisible finance into our daily activities such as Booking.com creates a fintech unit with 400 people to integrate payments and buyers. Companies are going to leverage open banking as it is like the iPhone momentum to facilitate companies in building up new products. For instance, after Whatsapp was acquired by Facebook, founders have been building companies on it.

2. How Open Banking Trend means Open Finance from Paolo Sironi

Paolo Sironi is the Global Research Leader of Banking and Financial Markets at IBM Consulting – Institute for Business Value, Innovation Advisory Board Member at NPL Markets and Net Insurance and a Co-host Fintech Podcaster at Breaking Banks Europe.

Companies need to discuss the business models before applying the technologies for higher business values. European countries are focusing on user-centric interfaces to build banking as a platform for strong trusted relationship communication between them to lead to conscious banking. Financial intermediaries want to have the market power to get superior information for more demand core banking as a service to become contextual banking. In 2010, the global banks represented 95% of market capitalization, but now in 2021, it is less than 75%. Now finance companies want to be super apps, win the platform economy shifting from output to outcome to take the lead in fintech unicorns. It is the opportunity to laminate frictions that makes banking contextualized and it is the need to demonstrate values for clients that makes banking conscious.

Learn the fundamentals of Open Banking and Platforms in under 40 mins!

3. Startups focusing on Open Banking trend to offer comprehensive solutions from Stephan Murer

Stephan Murer holds an MBA from University of St.Gallen and a PhD of Computer Science from ETH Zürich. He is currently a Non-Executive director of Yapeal, Board Director Member of Gravity Global AG, Owner of Murer Consulting, Senior Advisor of ti&m and LzLabs GmbH, Strategic Advisor of FTV Capital and Senior Lecturer of CFTE.

Europe consists of numerous growing open banking, doubled from January to December 2021. Focused on customer services, API banking offers new opportunities to corporate banking such as automated payments, direct access from the ERP to simplify credit management for a long time. New standardization makes mobile banking accessible for SMEs. Banks follow innovation to develop new services on top of existing features and to offer comprehensive services like API to attract stakeholders and individuals.

Open banking forces technology innovation but 3.0% of banks are not using public clouds due to limited understanding, 40% are planning to use and 57% are using public cloud. Predictions include that Open Banking will generate the most value in commercial banking, new players will be more focused than traditional banks to offer competitive solutions through the ecosystem and receive venture capital much easier. Survivors from the past will have invested in renewing the core and not just the interface to remain competitive. In many areas, banking will become invisible behind other business transactions with an impact on the banking brands.

4. Open Banking trends are Booming Around the World from Carlos Figueredo

Carlos Figueredo holds a BSc of Computer Networking from Strayer University and Msc of International Management from University of Liverpool. He is the Founder and CEO of Open Vector in the UK.

Latin America has taken so many initiatives of the Open Banking trend, new investments for startups have taken the opportunity of sharing data for giving services to customers. Brazil is in the fourth and final phase to move to an open finance economy. Mexico was the first open finance in the world and is pushing 4,000 financial institutions to comply with the initiatives and regulations. In the UK, the community is going strong on moving towards open finance as they realize the opportunity of cross-sector data, better consumer offerings, direct consumer payments, and dominance of cards reduced. In the USA, President Biden has encouraged the CFPB to issue a rule allowing customers to download their banking data and take it with them. There might be a challenge as there are only 4 different regulators in the US but it is a good uptake by consumers and thus protecting consumer data. Overall, open banking is the ability to cooperate with fintech to create new services, vendor build, and direct consumer payments.

Conclusion

This pandemic may have forced financial institutions to allocate their budget away from physical in-person infrastructure but this accelerated towards new technology innovations by using the benefit of APIs and open comprehensive ecosystem to become clearer and efficient for 2022.

The post 4 Open Banking and Platform Trends to Look Out in 2022 appeared first on CFTE.

Welcome to CFTE’s Fintech Shot for October 11th, 2021. The first week of Q4 is finally over, autumn’s here and FinTech is buzzing with excitement- here’s some knowledge for your brain:

Monzo withdraws application for US Banking License

Oh what, Monzo’s not a bank?

Challenger bank Monzo has decided to withdraw its application for a US banking license, illustrating the challenges for European FinTechs entering the US. After two years of negotiations with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Monzo has given up hope of securing a full banking license, after regulators told the start-up that it was unlikely to be approved.  It leaves us wondering is Monzo remaining an e-money institution a bad thing?

What is an e-money institution (EMI)?

Electronic Money Institutions are allowed to issue and redeem electronic money. Electronic money is a digital equivalent of cash stored on an electronic device or remotely at a server.

What’s the problem? Why did Monzo withdraw their application?

Regulators said it was unlikely to be approved which helped Monzo to realise the futility of their efforts. Moreover, it highlights how difficult it is for European EMIs to get banking licenses in the UK.

Why do they need a banking license in the US?

Monzo which is in the US, without a full banking license, is one of several so-called challenger banks that operate with only an ATM card and an app. Without a license they’ll need to continue to partner with a US bank to provide more services.

Our Take

• How does this impact their future growth plans?

• Dropping the push for a US banking license, allows Monzo to streamline and focus on their product offerings internationally as an innovative EMI. It could be a positive- that helps to create a more sustainable and effective business model.

We hope you liked this article featured in CFTE’s newsletter – The Fintech Shot! Join our mailing list and receive this next week article before anyone else!

Share this newsletter with your friends

The post Monzo withdraws application for US Banking License appeared first on CFTE.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the latest fundraising of Revolut. But is Revolut a Challenger Bank or a Neobank? Techcrunch wrote about Revolut as part of the neobanking sector, Forbes talks about the challenger bank trend, and it’s not just Revolut, but also others such as Bunq (as a neobank. Or challenger bank).

You might be wondering, is it really important? What’s the difference? Is it just semantics, or is there something deeper behind ? Read ahead…

Neobanks and challenger banks are digital banks

This is certainly what most agree on: From Revolut to Bunq to Lunar to Nubank to Chime to Mox, we are talking about digital banks, where customer interaction is done through a digital interface, usually mobile-first.

But although they are digital, most of the new entrants wouldn’t necessarily define themselves as digital banks, which has a connotation of incumbent digitalising their offering.

What is the definition of neobank and challenger bank?

As for everything in Fintech, there is not a universal definition. However, here is the definition that we use at CFTE, which helps us to clearly understand two different types of business models:

A challenger bank?

• A challenger bank is a new digital bank that has a bank license.
• The most important word is “banking license”: a challenger bank is regulated as a bank
• It is new, so not an existing bank digitalising its business
• And digital as we mentioned before

What about a neobank?

• A neobank is a company that offers some banking services without being regulated as a bank.
• A neobank is not regulated as bank. It does not mean that it is not regulated however, and most would be authorised on frameworks such as e-money regulations.
• A neobank cannot therefore be called a “bank”

Why is “challenger bank” vs “neobank” important?

From a customer’s standpoint (and even in general, as seen from the examples above), people do not make a difference between neobank and challenger bank.

For most people, using a debit card, making a transfer, viewing their accounts, those are the frequent interactions with their banks, and they can get it from both challenger and neobanks.

However, it is for the less frequent events that consumers would start to see a difference:

• A loan
• A mortgage
• An overdraft
• And in the most extreme case, if the provider goes bankrupt

In the first 3 cases, only challenger banks can directly provide lending activities. And only clients of challenger banks benefit from the national protection funds.

So if for consumers, challenger banks were the same as neobanks, but with more services and more protection, does it mean that challenger banks would be always favoured? Not necessarily.

And that comes to a question of startup development and business model:

• A neobank is almost a pure tech startup: focus on customer experience through product management, fast iterations, with the objective to acquire as many clients as possible. This is the framework of “faster, cheaper, better” that we use at CFTE. This is made possible because they are lightly regulated, and their objective is to make (a bit of) money on (a lot of) customers. Just like a tech company.

• A challenger bank is a bank built with modern technologies: at its core, it is a bank and needs to manage its activities like a bank, from asset liability management to credit risks. Their objective is to make money first and foremost through lending, which means that their objective is to grow their balance sheet. Just like a bank.

Which is why neobanks have been growing their customer base much faster than challenger banks, but challenger banks have been growing their deposit and lending base instead.

Neobanks and challenger banks are fundamentally two different business models. At some point, as these companies grow, they converge, with neobanks applying for banking licenses.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Neobanks and challenger banks are two different types of companies, with different objectives and setup.
• Neobanks act like tech companies and are looking to quickly build their user base through unbundling, then to offer more services as they reach a critical mass of users.
• Challenger banks act like modern banks and are looking to grow their balance sheet in a profitable way, and to become the main bank for their customers.
• Number of customers is the main KPI for neobanks, not profitability (at least at first). Profitability through proper risk management is the main KPI for neobanks.
• Both models are valid, and can lead to very successful companies.

This article is part of CFTE’s Fintech Shot weekly newsletter. Join our mailing list and receive this newsletter before anyone else!

The post Challenger Bank vs Neobank: what is the difference? appeared first on CFTE.

London, 26 July 2021 – Starling Bank has today announced the acquisition of specialist buy-to-let mortgage lender Fleet Mortgages in a £50 million cash and share deal.

Fleet Mortgages, based in Hampshire, focuses on providing mortgages to professional and semi-professional buy-to-let landlords, only via mortgage adviser distribution channels.

To date, it has originated £2.3 billion of mortgages and experienced zero credit losses. It currently has circa-£1.75 billion of mortgages under management. Starling will become the sole funder of future originations, with Fleet Mortgages able to build on its successful lending operation by accessing Starling’s growing deposit base. Day-to-day operations at Fleet will continue unchanged with the company’s existing and highly-respected management team.

The acquisition – Starling’s first – is part of a wider plan at the bank to expand lending through a mix of strategic forward-flow arrangements, organic lending and targeted M&A activity.

Anne Boden, CEO of Starling, who is also a CFTE expert, said: “The acquisition of Fleet Mortgages is the start of our move into mortgages as an asset class and builds on a number of forward-flow arrangements that we’re doing with leading non-bank lenders.

The post Starling Bank acquires buy-to-let specialist mortgage lender, Fleet Mortgages appeared first on CFTE.

Hello and welcome to CFTE’s Fintech Shot – a weekly curated newsletter about what matters in Fintech. Click here to join this newsletter and receive weekly fintech news, articles and more.

Revolut raised a funding round of $800m at a valuation of $33bn. The two investors were Softbank and TigerGlobal. What does a $33bn valuation for a 6-year old Fintech startup tell us about the future of finance ? Read ahead.

FINTECH NEWS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

What is Revolut?

Revolut was founded in 2015 by Nik Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko, and started from Level 39, the Fintech ecosystem of Canary Wharf (the new financial district of London). Level 39 was designed to accelerate innovation in financial services and support the growth of Fintech startups in London. Quite a few successful UK Fintech startups started at Level 39, such as Revolut, eToro or Digital Shadows.

(Fun facts about CFTE and Revolut: in 2019, CFTE moved to Revolut’s former office in Level 39. For the second CFTE Extrapreneurship, 70 CFTE participants worked with the Revolut team to build a go-to-market strategy)

Revolut started with a very simple value proposition: a prepaid debit card with no FX fees for those travelling abroad. From an innovation standpoint, that was an example of unbundling of finance, which they did very well, by growing to 500k customers in their first year of operation.
At the core, unbundling is about providing a cheaper / faster / better service, and this is exactly what Revolut did: cheaper (0 fees), faster (instant notification), better (very modern user interface)

Although services such as Revolut are now extremely common, there were 3 differentiators that drew customers to Revolut:

• WOW factor: the packaging of Revolut’s card was revolutionary for a financial product. Have a look on Youtube at “Unboxing Revolut card” – how many people take a video when they receive a debit card?
• Instant notifications on mobile phones: Revolut clients were surprised to receive a notification on their phone at the same time they were paying at a shop. Until then, they had to wait days or weeks to check their bank statements.
• Social sharing: from their apps, Revolut users could find their friends, add them, and send them money instantaneously, in a similar way to Whatsapp.

This last feature helped the growth of Revolut through referrals, and they frequently mentioned that their Customer Acquisition Cost was £0 during their first few years.

This was very important, because the success of unbundling strategies relies on fast customer acquisition through low CAC, and by the end of 2018 they had a customer base of 3 million users.

The natural step after unbundling is rebundling to increase customer loyalty and usage, and Revolut started to offer mobile phone insurance in 2017, then over the years saving accounts, crypto currency trading, etc. From a business standpoint, their 2 most important rebundling decisions were 1) to offer a premium subscription service and 2) expand their offering to SMEs

Today, Revolut offers banking services to: retail clients (16m), SMEs (500k) and across payments, savings, crypto investing, expense management, etc. It is the most global neobank, with a presence in 35 countries.

Last year, they made £260m of revenues, split almost equally between interchange fees, FX/ wealth and subscription fees.

Why is Revolut’s fundraising important?

Revolut raised its latest round at a valuation of $33bn, which in itself is a staggering number.

With a $33bn valuation, it becomes a top 5 private Fintech company, after Ant Group ($312bn), Stripe ($95bn), Robinhood ($40bn) and Gojek ($35bn).

If we were to compare it with the European banks, Revolut would be the 11th largest European bank, after HSBC ($113bn), Sberbank ($90bn), BNP Paribas ($75bn), Santander ($61bn), Lloyds Banking Group ($58bn), UBS ($57bn), Barclays ($53bn), Intesa San Paolo ($50bn), ING ($47bn) and Credit Agricole ($40bn).

But private valuations can of course widely fluctuate – and some might be wary of putting too much weight on a Softbank valuation – so let’s just say that independently from the number, Revolut is now one of the major companies in Fintech financial services.

Since Revolut became more widely known, it has attracted controversies, with questions around its aggressive culture and hiring practices. Many also raised questions around its business model, and in particular lack of profitability.

At CFTE, we have used Revolut as a case study since 2017, and our co-founder Huy Nguyen Trieu, frequently uses Revolut as a prime example of unbundling/rebundling strategy.

According to Huy :

• A startup focuses on a narrow vertical and offers a cheaper/better/faster solution than existing offerings. In the case of Revolut, it was debit cards for travellers.
• Its first objective is to grow its customer base very quickly with a low Customer Acquisition Cost, that demonstrates Product Market Fit.
• As the startup grows its customer base, it increases its product suite to build customer usage and loyalty.
• In the trade-off between growth and profitability, growth comes first. Funding is provided by external sources such as venture capital or the stock market.

This is what Huy calls the Amazonification of finance, with Amazon starting on a narrow vertical (books), and focusing on customer growth for more than a decade before profitability. In innovation terms, it’s a high risk but potentially high impact strategy. The two main hurdles for the startup is 1) always attracting capital and 2) fending rising competition. But for those who can overcome both, market domination is the objective.

Revolut is therefore important because it is one of the best examples of the unbundling / rebundling process in FS.

Secondly, Revolut is important because it answers the question : can a Fintech startup be truly global? Fintech companies can be very big (Ant Group, but in China only), Internet companies can be truly global (Google), but can Fintech companies be truly global? This is the question that Revolut helped to answer, and the answer is Yes..

And finally, Revolut is important because it answers the question : how do you make money in financial services. Until 5 years ago, it was conventional wisdom that making money through transformation (ie lending vs borrowing) was the core of finance, with 2/3 of revenues of banks coming from there. In the case of Revolut, this is absolutely not the case, with money coming from fees, FX and subscriptions. Revolut shows that it is possible to offer banking services without being fully reliant on net interest margin.

What next for Revolut?

This is of course the million (billion? decabillion?) question: what is the future of Revolut?
Looking at conventional metrics, Revolut’s valuation is in stratospheric territory:

• $300m of revenues vs $30bn, i.e 100x Price to Sales ratio. This is almost double the highest Price to Sales Ratio, which was Snapchat at 60x during their IPO.
• 16m users, even netting $100 each would represent just $1.6bn of revenues, i.e. a Price to Sales ratio of 50x.

However, we could take another view, which is that whether it’s $30bn or $10bn, this is not that important. If we follow the playbook of cheaper/better/faster innovation, Revolut’s strategy is to continue its fast growth until they dominate the market, i.e. do in finance what Amazon did in retail. Or globally what Ant did in China.

The objective is therefore not 50 or 100 million users, but 500 million.

Can Revolut achieve this? Let’s say that for one Amazon, there are hundreds of dead startups. So yes, Revolut is well placed, but if not them, it’s likely that another one will.

In terms of strategy, Revolut’s main priority should be exponential growth first and foremost, whether organically or through acquisitions (which is where a $30bn valuation can be helpful…). This is now a race against time for Revolut where they need to grow their customer base in each country before local or global competitors make their CAC too high.

Like we have said for the last 4 years, it will be fascinating to see where they go…

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The hyperscalability of Internet companies can also apply to Fintech
• Unbundling then rebundling of finance by Fintech startups has happened
• Investors are betting on the next “Amazon” in finance
• Fintech startups can be global

INSIDE FINTECH

The Robinhood IPO: Everything you need to know

Investors are buckling up for what is the most anticipated IPO – It’s the knight in shining armor that is democratizing finance for all – Robinhood! The Fintech upstart plans to raise $100 million as it begins trading on the Nasdaq. With revenue shooting up as much as 245% up from 2019 in 2020 and gaining an additional 6 million users in the first 2 months of 2021, its IPO could be booming! But with regulatory pressures, meme driven-growth, could the Robinhood IPO really be the investment of your dreams?

Read More

5 of the Top 10 Financial Institutions are now platforms

Technology has radically changed finance over the last decade. The digital revolution has affected the world’s top 10 financial institutions. How? Their market capitalisation holds the answers. A decade ago the top 10 financial institutions were all traditional banks. But looking into the business model of the top 10 as of today, 5 of the 6 new entrants in the chart have moved away from traditional banking to be heavily involved in payments and leverage a platform business model! Read more to find out who these game-changing companies are!

Read more

UPCOMING FINTECH EVENTS

22nd July | Securing The Digital Payment Ecosystem
Lear more on how to ensure hassle-free, fast, and easy payments while ensuring robust security

28th July | Capitalising on Cryptocurrency Market Opportunities
Join an interactive roundtable with our industry panel on ways in capitalising on crypto technologies for commercial benefit.

29th July | Embrace Artificial Intelligence and Prepare for the Future
Get a headstart on exploring the real-life implementations and use of AI in finance from credit decision to risk management.

COURSE OF THE WEEK

Data Science and AI is opening up millions of opportunities across industries

Learn how to successfully implement Data Sience and AI projects so can boost your career with skills to drive efficiency, spark innovation and make intelligent decisions at work. You will understand the industry’s most relevant applications by learning from David Hardoon Senior Advisor, Union Bank of the Philippines.

Start Learning Now ►

EVENT OF THE WEEK

The Future of Money

Rewatch this webinar to get a front-row seat to understand the main highlights, trends and analysis of Citi’s viral report, “Future of Money” – directly from the author himself, Ronit Ghose, Global Head of Banks Research, Citi. Hear all about the latest trends in money from cryptocurrencies, stablecoins to CBDCs that are shaping today’s financial sphere.

Start Watching Now ►

UNICORN OF THE WEEK

Sorare, the football NFT startup, rumoured to be raising $500m at $4bn

Why is it interesting?

• Bringing the world of football trading cards to NFT
• Highly profitable
• Would be fourth French Fintech unicorn, all in 2021

See CFTE’s live and updated ranking of the largest Fintech companies ►

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Banks spend nearly $5 billion on tech, but only 1% of this hefty amount is spent on employee development”“

Huy Nguyen Trieu, CFTE’s Co-founder at Fintech Week London 2021

We hope you liked this week newsletter! Join our mailing list and receive this newsletter before anyone else!

Share this newsletter with your friends

The post What Revolut’s $33bn valuation tell us about the future of financial services appeared first on CFTE.

Digitalisation and next-generation values continue to make waves across the financial services sector and are transforming the way banks operate. As financial institutions prepare to thrive post-Covid, there is no sign that advancement in technology or changing attitudes to investment are dropping off. After the past year witnessed the industry’s rapid digital transformation, digital-banking platforms, AI (artificial intelligence)-driven investment tools, data analytics, and cloud-based services have in many cases become the norm.

Meanwhile, customer-centric thinking has put clients at the heart of the product offering and fuelled demand for ESG (environmental, social and governance) and ethical investments. With these trends here to stay, the banking sector needs to keep up to make it in the digital age. Arena International presents the annual Financial Services Disruptive Technology handbook as a valuable resource to navigate this unstoppable terrain. This guide offers a voice to the key thought leaders at the forefront of innovation and seeks to enable financial services professionals to take advantage of the new opportunities and emerging technologies. We hope you find inspiration and enjoy learning from the best in the industry.

About The Contributing Author:

Ritesh Jain, co-founder of Infynit and former COO at HSBC is also a senior lecturer and expert at CFTE. Ritesh is a contributing author of the paper ‘Financial Services Disruptive Technology’ and covers the first section on ‘The future is open‘. He discusses open banking, open finance, and the impact and benefits this will have for financial inclusion.

The post Financial Services Disruptive Technology: A guide to investment, digitalisation and emerging technologies appeared first on CFTE.

View Courses

About CFTE

Colombia’s third quarter in 2021 will see an increase in collaborations and partnerships between Fintechs and Incumbent banks as regulators encourage a “sandbox approach” to implementing open banking. A regulatory sandbox is a framework set up by a regulator that allows FinTech startups and other innovators to conduct live experiments in a controlled environment under a regulator’s supervision.

“The long-term goal is to have an open architecture for all financial products and services, something that will require a “step-by-step” construction, starting, preferably, with the incorporation of savings and loans products into the model.” says Felipe Lega Gutierrez, General Director of URF.

The post Open Banking is spreading in Latin America. And there is no end in sight. appeared first on CFTE.

View Courses

About CFTE

The post Top Courses, Certifications & Trainings in Open Banking [2021] appeared first on CFTE.

View Courses

About CFTE

The post Best courses in Banking and Finance in the World in 2021 appeared first on CFTE.