Month: March 2017

Visa announced its payment-enabled sunglasses earlier this week at South by Southwest (SXSW), a yearly event held in Austin, Texas that celebrates the convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries through music festivals and conferences.

To pay using the glasses, simply remove the glasses and tap them on a Visa near field communication (NFC) enabled terminal. No phone, cards or watches necessary. It is meant to be casual, quick, and highlights the way payments may be made in the coming months and years.

These sunglasses are not available to the public yet, instead Visa is currently testing the concept to see if there is a demand in the general public.

In my opinion, I don’t think we need every portable item in our life to become a form of payment. Sunglasses, in particular, are an accessory that is very easy to lose, which is a little scary. I would be a little paranoid about misplacing these sunglasses. The hassle of having to cancel the card associated with the glasses in the case they go missing seems troublesome and altogether avoidable. In addition, sunglasses aren’t something you’d use in the dark, so this product isn’t actually that convenient. I think I would worry more about losing this product than feeling like it is making my life easier.

Source: https://www.slashgear.com/visa-sunglasses-prototype-uses-nfc-for-mobile-payments-14478709/

We have heard a lot of the positives of cryptocurrencies that operate on a blockchain network such as Bitcoin. Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday denied a request to list an exchange traded fund built to track bitcoin. If accepted, this would have been the first digital currency fund in the U.S. Investors have been trying for more than three years to convince the SEC to allow a Bitcoin ETF to be on the market. Because of the rejection of the ETF, the digital currency’s price plunged as much as 18 percent following the decision. Investors speculated that if there was an ETF holding, the digital currency would get more individuals to buy the asset. Part of the reason why the ETF was denied was because the commission believed that bitcoin is unregulated and it is relatively in its early stages of development. In addition, there is question on if the regulators would be able to price and trade the fund effectively. This is interesting that even though bitcoin is on a blockchain network, ensuring that it is not able to be hacked, the SEC rejected the application. It is possible that soon in the future, Bitcoin will apply again and have its own ETF.

Article: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/10/us-sec-rejects-application-to-list-bitcoin-etf.html

Here are my views on blockchain in health data:

The blockchain is being applied in the healthcare industry. The physical records of health are going digital one step at a time. Previously, documents like Xrays and CT scan are now available in digital formats which are flexible for hospitals and research. But, this possesses the threat to both consumer records as now they are in digital form they can be modified. Not just this, but the insurance price in many cases dependent on the health condition. In this case, health data is becoming more important even in day to day life. In this situation, we need some technology that can store the data and records safety and validate them. This gives users data protection as data is not distributed. And as other blockchain techs, it is write only so the data is safe. I feel all future healthcare documents including tests, medication should be stored in the blockchain. As always the protection of data would be a concern even though it is a restricted ledger but by gaining access to one ledger entire data can be accessed.

 

 

References: http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/10/14880094/deepmind-health-uk-data-blockchain-audit

This article talks about the reaction that some in the bitcoin (crypto currency can be seen as a type of Fintech) community are having  to some of blockchain’s struggles. Interestingly, one source of these troubles has been Bitcoin’s success in recent years. As Bitocoin gains in more values, more people have been trying to make Bitcoin transactions. This has caused the blockchain to become jammed, as the miners have been unable to keep up with the speed and quantity of new transactions. As such, there seems to be a split between those who want to remove the cap on the amount of data that can be in the blockchain and those who don’t.

For me, the most surprising thing about the conflict is not that it is happening, but that it has taken so long to happen. It seemed inevitable that something would happen to allow big buyers to gain an unfair advantage in the Bitcoin system by becoming an overly large buyer. In addition, I am not surprised that a completely decentralized system would struggle to respond to sudden growth. I also think that Bitcoin being split up into essentially two forms of Bitcoin would drastically hurt Bitcoin, if for no other reason that it would make Bitcoin even more confusing to outsiders than it already is.

---

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-13/bitcoin-miners-signal-revolt-in-push-to-fix-sluggish-blockchain

Recently, Google Ventures, the venture capital arm of internet giant, Google, made its first investment in a fintech company. The company they invested in, CurrencyCloud is a service that allows companies to quickly scale international operations by handling the currency conversions and transactions in a transactional fee revenue model.

The CEO of CurrencyCloud mentioned that the demand for global transactional services is quickly growing as it allows fast growth startups to conduct business on a global scale without organically developing the capability.

Scalability

One of the major selling points that draws interest among the Google Venture partners is the ability to quickly scale business and help others do the same. This is one of the major draws for CurrencyCloud due to their APIs that allow for rapid expansion and quick integration.

Global

Now more than ever, businesses are seeking to expand internationally as soon as they can in order to grow at a quicker pace. One of the Google Venture partners commented on this, recognizing CurrencyCloud as a leader in international transactional services.

Overall, Google may look to expand their venture investments in the fintech sector as the industry is drawing in more and more customers. Look to see this trend increasing as new financial services that promote global markets come into play and reduce the barriers to international business.

Blockchain, a digital ledger in which transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded publicly and  chronologically, will challenge and disrupt present centralized business models and the financial services sector.

The core fabric of the blockchain network which has the ability to potentially remove intermediaries or disrupt their current operating models, while allowing transactions to be securely maintained.  By removing layers of intermediation, banks are more likely to cooperate.  Furthermore, systemic risk can be reduced by moving towards a tamper-proof decentralized ledger where there is a single point of truth.

The core business model of banks is constantly being disrupted, and the blockchain is sure to be a driver of change in the years to come.  By moving money in different ways, there will be an increasing number of new financial products, as well as lower barriers to entry and greater competition in a more globalized marketplace.

https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/13823/how-blockchain-will-change-the-future-of-financial-service-sector

What the Article Says:

As Financial Technologies and innovations become more prevalent in China, the favoritism for frugality is now shifting toward a more generous mindset. These are thoughts of Li Zichuan, a senior analyst at a Beijing-based consulting firm. “Advances in technology and the popularity of mobile devices have together cemented the foundation of internet finance. As big data and AI technologies are becoming more mature, the uses of financial technology can be widely expanded and are fast becoming a potent driving force of consumption,” Li continues.

It is evident that companies are beginning to increase their collaboration to tap into the needs of their customers. This involves increasing online loans, bank transfers, and monetary exchanges. Spending is expected to continue rising in China, sparking even more growth for the global economy.

My Thoughts:

I think this is just as great for the U.S. as it is for China. Increasing innovation from a global perspective offers more and better products for consumers, while bringing people together from around the world. As China has typically been a manufacturer for U.S. goods, I am interested in seeing if there is a shift away from this norm as innovation rises abroad.

Source: http://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/2073798/how-financial-technology-driving-chinese-consumer-spending

The promotions of cashless payment have highly been linked with the growth of technology.  The truth is it has a higher impact on economic growth of the Countries whether it is developing the country or developed Country. The studies have shown that the cashless payment has increased the GDP of countries which started adapting the concepts of cashless payments. They have also created the higher amount of job opportunities in the market as well as created a smooth transaction process for financial institutions. Raising of Household consumption of goods and services are also observed at a higher level. It becomes very easy to track the flow of currency with cashless payment for government regulation and also reduce the amount of effort and cost that central banks invest in the providing notes and coins. The revenue tax collection has increased marking the reduction of Grey economy. In my opinion, this is the best way to track the currency regulation of any country and reduce the amount of corruption regulation.It has recently been proven in India when the demonetization happened, The revenue gathered by the country was increased by a substantial amount. This type of promotion in cashless payment can lead to a real growth in the economy of a country.

references:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/272410

Fintech seems to be the way forward. Many major venture capitalist firms have taken an interest to these new fintech startups. As this industry grows, what we can expect from fintech in 2017 should be continued growth and adoption by more and more companies. We have learned that trust will be a huge difference maker among consumers. The ability for fintech firms to handle sensitive information and transactions will prove to be the ultimate deciding factors for the average consumer. The mobile platforms will also see exponential growth in the coming year as more and more consumers are using fintech apps from their phone. The mobile market is allowing fintech to reach more customers especially in emerging markets.

I agree with most points but I feel that the article fails to mention the importance of industry grade fintech. Traditional financial institutions still have a massive hold over large companies and in order to break down the traditional barriers and infrastructures of old financial institutions, more robust technology needs to be made available to these large companies.

reference: http://fortune.com/2017/03/10/financial-technology-trends/

Google Ventures just entered the world of fintech with its $25 million investment into Currencycloud, a London based startup. Currencycloud is a five year old startup that “provides a set of multi-currency payment and conversion tools that are helping hundreds of companies globalize fast.” The article discusses briefly how this would be a boost to the UK fintech sector after post-Brexit fears have struck much of the British economy. I believe that this will not really help the fintech sector of the British economy because Brexit’s impact is quite large. Due to the trade changes that will occur in the British economy, we will see investors shy away from UK based companies for quite some time. Since the economy relies heavily on trade from the EU, we will see the economy decline overall and see smaller, newer sectors of the economy become quite small and stagnate. It will take some time for the UK to recover from Brexit and see any large growth in its fintech industry because of this, but in time, the UK economy will bounce back and the fintech sector will become quite strong.

Article Link: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/google-ventures-conducts-first-fintech-investment/