As Facebook continues to recover from their issues surrounding data they have announced a blockchain based strategy; former PayPal president...
Dodd-Frank requires banks to disclose information about employee wages and the data shows a mixed bag for banks; banks like Goldman Sachs lie on the high end of the pay scale while small banks in locations like Houston are at the bottom of the spectrum; what the data also shows is banks are finding it hard to compete with big tech firms for talent as companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon tend to pay premium wages; wages overall look to be rising as lower skill, lower wage jobs are becoming less frequent across the industry. Source.
Ireland has become a hub of technological innovation as big tech, fintech and big financial services companies set up shop in country as an alternative to the UK; “Ireland has always been quite an innovative country; it has to be because it is such a small market, you can’t just lean on the Irish market to produce a decent fintech business.” says Sinead Fitzmaurice, co-founder of TransferMate, to the FT; talent from Google and Facebook have not only started their own companies but have also moved into finance giants like Deutsche Bank; low corporate tax rates combined with the tech talent has help the country become an emerging fintech market. Source.
In their latest edition of Confessions, TearSheet talks to an analyst at a startup attached to a large bank about innovation, trying to get tech talent and why more fintech companies should partner with banks; about half of the talent at the startup came form inside the bank and as the analyst points out it was more because of convenience as hiring from the outside could take months; banks have trouble keeping top talent because the projects are not as interesting as projects at Google or Facebook; other areas discussed include default rates ticking up, marketing practices and expanding product offerings. Source.
Peter Renton, Founder of Lend Academy reports on the potential of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple being the fintech leaders of tomorrow. Source
Banks can take a lot of lessons from Facebook in regards to the ongoing data problems with Cambridge Analytica; as data sharing becomes commonplace in banking, banks and their partners need to ensure information is kept secure and not used for nefarious reasons. Source.
MasterCard and Facebook Messenger have teamed up to bring Nigerian small businesses digital payments and banking; 98 percent of Nigerians use cash when transacting with businesses; businesses message a Masterpass QR bot on Facebook Messenger to help enable QR code payments; the partnership is then supported by Nigeria’s Ecobank and Zenith Bank by setting up those businesses with accounts at the banks; the biggest hurdle in a partnership like this is the consumers or small businesses cannot transact with one another and so adoption is slow, though the partnership hope to solve that issue. Source.
Since the financial crises banks, for the most part, have focused their time and effort on complying with new regulations and building up capital ratios in case another crisis hits; while they were doing this another industry, fintech, emerged and has eaten into some of the core profit making businesses of the banks; banks have started to catch up with technology and as countries like the US look to pare back some crisis era rules the banks see the next few years as the perfect opportunity to invest wisely in technology; the one thing the banks might not be able to handle is if Amazon, Facebook or Google begin to encroach further into fintech, potentially bring in competition who can immediately match up in size and strength. Source.
Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft, or GAFAM as they are beginning to be know are continuing their move towards financial services; payments have become one area in particular where they have seen the tech giants making inroads; mobile wallets for in-store payments, money transfers between friends and even loans to small businesses; tech giants have only started to disrupt fintech as they look to become bigger players in consumers financial lives. Source.
One of the first posts I ever wrote on Lend Academy back in 2010 was about mulling the idea of...