Month: March 2017

Accenture reported the introduction of artificial intelligence could increase labor productivity by 40% by 2035. Financial institutions such as the Royal Bank of Scotland have begun replacing human employees with automated services.

However, citizens are fearful of what the future means for AI. Technology was once a scary (i.e. Y2K) and foreign idea, and it took time for people to develop trust. Similar to technology, it will take time for people to adopt to and trust AI, but it could take even longer due to its negative media portals.

Like it or not, companies have already begun developing AI-powered digital assistants to infiltrate in our lives, starting with financial services. Telefonica is developing an AI to help users manage their digital experiences. It will integrate with Amazon Echo and Microsoft’s HoloLens to help users manage their financial accounts, make payments, and exchange currencies.

Current fintech disrupt traditional financial institutions and make banking simpler, and AI is the next disruption. AI has the power to deliver a streamlined method of banking, decrease labor costs, reduce potential risks, and increase revenues. Customers will no longer need to have human interactions with bank employees and customer service, but will that really be missed?

Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/madhvimavadiya/2017/02/27/artificial-intelligence-human-fintech/#4e72e4ba46a1

P2P Insurance:

Peer-to-peer, or P2P, insurers put customers into groups based on a shared factor, usually the type of policy. The group’s members pool all their premiums, and payment for insurance claims come from the pool. The aim of P2P insurance is to make insurance cheaper and to reduce the inherent conflict between insurance carriers and policyholders at the time of a claim.

3  disruption factors which P2P insurance has:

• Building Power: Big names in insurance are throwing their weight behind P2P insurance startups like Lemonade. These new insurance companies in the fast-growing P2P segment are using crowdsourcing and social networking to create a shared insurance experience. More will follow their lead.
• Rebel Customers: With P2P, peer groups, such as owners of autos, houses and small businesses, buddy up to absorb each other’s risks, with all contributing money to insure each other’s losses. The startups promise a pleasant, powerful and even a little bit of rebel experience.
• Venture Capital: P2P startups have excited the venture capitalists by offering a technologically strong alternative to the existing insurance business model. By and large, their management teams generally are comprised of professionals formerly in leadership capacities with technology firms and insurance companies – fueling the growing category of InsurTech.

I surely feel P2P insurance is the way going forward. Crop insurance for farmers would be a very good application of P2P insurance. It would be a good solution for the farmers.

Reference: http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/peer-to-peer-companies-are-disrupting-insurance

Abstract: The recent emphasis on regulatory compliance, mergers and acquisitions and health information exchanges has made the creating and maintaining of accurate and complete master data a business imperative in healthcare industry. In this post I will briefly discuss the importance of Master Data Management and three approaches for MDM.

To answer the question about why master data management(MDM) is important it is better to start by definition of MDM; is a comprehensive method of enabling an enterprise to link all of its critical data to one file, called a master file, that provides a common point of reference. When properly done, MDM streamlines data sharing among personnel and departments.

Three main drivers are making MDM more important than ever in the healthcare industry:

1. Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A): The IT systems of organizations involved in M&A are rarely the same, and each organization has its own master data.
2. Health information exchanges (HIEs): To successfully exchange information across locations and organizations, HIEs have to be able to reconcile master data.
3. ACOs: To understand and manage their patient populations, ACOs bring together health system data and payer data.

When we found out about the importance of MDM the next question is how to tackle it. Currently, three main approaches are available:

• IT system consolidation: abandon best-of-breed solutions in favor of monolithic EMR and ERP solutions.
• Upstream MDM implementation: organizations keep their disparate IT systems but map their master data through a third-party tool such as an enterprise master patient index (EMPI).
• Downstream master data reconciliation in an enterprise data warehouse (EDW): for organization who has already mastered its data, an EDW can work with whatever MDM approach has been adopted. And if the organization hasn’t solved its MDM problems, resolving issues with common linkable identifiers and common linkable vocabulary in an EDW platform is an option.

How to find best approach: The drawback of IT consolidation is its complexity and its expense. Also upstream implementations tend to be complicated, large, expensive, and slow-moving IT projects. We find that this approach has a high failure rate. finally while EDW platforms enable healthcare organizations to use their data to drive higher-quality, lower-cost care but it will not solve master data challenges at the level of transactional systems.

Conclusion: In real-world situations, there can be quite a bit of overlap among these M&A, HIEs and ACOs which makes selecting the best approach for MDM difficult. The solutions we have in place now for managing master data may not be comprehensive enough to encompass all the data a healthcare organization will need to leverage. An EDW can step in and bridge any gaps in an organization’s MDM strategy.

References:

http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/definition/master-data-management

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb190163.aspx

http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/master-data-management-mdm/

https://www.healthcatalyst.com/master-data-management-in-healthcare-3-approaches

http://dataconomy.com/2016/03/modern-face-master-data/

 

 

When handling sensitive information, or even in any electronic transaction, security is highly important. Studies show that in the UK, “only five out of 11 leading high street banks had adopted two-step authentication to protect customers when they logged into their accounts, even though they have the technology in place” (Banking Tech). Attacks, however, are on the rise everywhere, with 76 million customers affected at JP Morgan in a single 2014 attack (Banking Tech). This seems almost ridiculous to me that the security is existing and ready to go but not actually implemented. Security obviously needs to be prioritized, especially as hackers get smarter and banks are falling behind.

I believe that security needs to be at the forefront of all technological development, especially fintech. I think it should even be prioritized over innovation, in the sense that new technologies are only released once they are thoroughly secured. Banks in Italy are collaborating to take increased security measures, and while this is an interesting move to take with your competition, I think that ultimately it is the smartest one (Banking Tech). The risks ultimately are too high to not collaborate.

Source:
http://www.bankingtech.com/749122/are-banks-taking-security-seriously-enough/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=fintechweeklycom
http://www.bankingtech.com/683741/italian-banks-set-up-cybersecurity-response-team-certfin/

iBeacon technology is fast gaining momentum and paving the way for efficient and seamless solutions across multiple domains today. Beacons are being used in almost every sector, from retail to events to education, to build and improve multiple solutions from indoor navigation to loyalty programs to pushing contextual notifications. One of the latest applications of beacons today are for proximity payments.
Proximity payments have experienced significant growth in the recent past and is projected to witness rapid growth in the near future.
Beacons are among the newest additions that are helping drive sales and digitize consumer payments in the FinTech world. They have been very beneficial for different industries including the retails industry. Given the benefit of coupling it together with other beacon enabled efforts such as loyalty programs, coupons and in-store navigation.

A large number of companies today are venturing into beacon enabled payment solutions, given its imminent benefits and wide ranging applicability. Here are some of the innovative companies that leverage iBeacon technology to deliver valuable payment solutions.

Paij
Paij is a Germany based mobile payment solution that strives to provide cashless, fast and secure payments through its app, which is available on both iOS and Android devices. Their beacon based payment solution provides great value for merchants and customers alike; the customizable iBeacon technology solution has many advantages like rapid self-checkout, promotions and personalized discount offers.To ensure payment safety, Paij also has a sophisticated risk-check processes to verify each customer, before the payment is collected.

PowaTag
PowaTag is among the front runners of the m-commerce revolution and uses a plethora of powerful technologies such as beacons, digital audio watermarks, visual tags and embedded social media links to deliver cutting edge payment solutions. They recently partnered with more than 1,200 global brands, to empower consumers to make quick purchases. PowaTag aims at converting every point of contact into a point of sale by easing the interaction with customers, offering personalized promotions and delivering efficient payment solutions.

contd…

References:

https://blog.beaconstac.com/2016/05/beacon-based-mobile-payments-4-brands-that-are-doing-it-right/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powa_Technologies

This article discusses the issues with our current financial systems, mainly the prevalence of intermediaries. The more steps there are in a process, the more vulnerable they are to error or fraud. The article notes that “45% of financial intermediaries, such as payment networks, stock exchanges, and money transfer services, suffer from economic crime every year”. It blames this high fraud rate on an entirely inefficient system that tries to digitize old paper procedures rather than utilize uniquely digital functions.

The authors mainly focus on how blockchain’s decentralized and secure structure can, and is, revolutionizing finance. They point out that incumbent financial intermediaries don’t need to see blockchain as a threat, but rather a next step. I think this is naive of the authors. Because of the lack of regulations and general newness of blockchain, established firms are going to be wary of transitioning until blockchain is proven. Most companies are reluctant to dramatically change their processes because they don’t see their customers asking for change. Financial institutions are going to be especially hesitant because people are extremely sensitive about their money’s security. If blockchain catches on, it will be disruptive to current financial intermediaries even if that doesn’t necessarily need to be the case.

 

https://hbr.org/2017/03/how-blockchain-is-changing-finance

Since 2015, Barclaycard’s touchless payment technology, bPay, has been used in over 1 million transactions totaling £6.6m. Their proprietary technology has been used in wristbands, fobs, and loops. Barclaycard has many partnerships with fashion brands to embed bPay into articles of clothes and wearables.

There has been new deals. The first includes a partnership with DCK, who source 60 million pieces of jewelry each year. They plan to turn their high-end bracelets into mobile wallets. Their second deal is with Tappy Technologies. They will turn luxury timepieces into payment devices.

I believe this is a great thing for mobile payments, although I think that there some barriers to overcome for fashion-oriented products. First, the existing market share of the Apple Watch might deter people from paying premiums for bPay integrated jewelry. Apple partners with fashion brands to provide its customers with fashion trendy bands. So Barclaycard’s need to be aggressive in their product integration and rollout. Furthermore, the wearables have a transaction limit of £30 at a time. It makes sense to have a low limit in case you lose your wearable. But there are two-factor authentication systems available. Apple uses its biometric sensors. Perhaps the fashion bands can use a token system and authorize all transactions for a period of time. Users could deactivate the band as a failsafe.

Barclaycard is making good strides in the right direction, but might be late to the game.

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/30190/barclaycard-strikes-new-wearable-deals-for-contactless-jewellery-and-watches