During the week when heatwaves boiled the world, our Experts posted cool fresh insights each & every day. Daily Fintech offers unique insights about the future of Fintech written by and for senior executives, entrepreneurs and investors.
Monday Ilias Hatzis @iliashatzis our Greece-based crypto entrepreneur, wrote “Bitcoin to the Moon”
TLDR: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and many other cryptocurrencies continue to experience massive growth in price, market capitalization, and mainstream adoption. Cryptocurrencies change and improve the way we do things. It is no longer a question of whether cryptocurrencies are disrupting the global economy. The only question is how much and how fast.
Ed note: Ilias does a great job looking back at the technology innovations leading up to the Bitcoin White Paper and asking the hard questions to analyse when and how Bitcoin will realise its potential by going mainstream. The POV is bullish as shown in the title.
Tuesday Efi Pylarinou @efipm our Swiss-based Fintech Adviser wrote “Environmental Sustainability and Finance: Poker or Chess?”
TLDR: All Finserv and Fintech ventures should focus on the Economic Value they create to reduce environmental risk. Economic Value goes beyond financials to focus on the use, abuse, and leveraging of non-market goods, like air, water, sea habitats, rainforest, biodiversity, and the wellbeing of human beings. Read her post to learn about the companies & people innovating in the use of finance and technology to mitigate environmental risk.
Ed Note: Efi compares the WEF`s Global Risks Reports over the past 10 years, highlighting a stunning shift to the environment as the top risk factor and asks what Fintech can do to help and highlights those people and companies innovating in the move to measure and manage sustainability. Given the huge shift to environmental risks, Efi argues that financial inclusion, while laudable, is not enough.
Wednesday Jessica Ellerm @jessicaellerm, our Australia-based Fintech entrepreneur, wrote “Friendly fintech MoneyLion lands $160 million in fresh funding”.
TLDR: What if banking was a club, rather than a bank?That is what MoneyLion do and a $160m funding round and 5m members indicates they maybe onto something. Membership is intuitive for people who use Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox, Office 365 etc. Maybe the game changer is a business model more than a technology?
Ed Note: People who been hurt by manipulative bank fees, maybe attracted to a Club model that aims to align incentives better. This is back to the future. Cooperative Banks are founded based on this idea, but then Mega Banks took over the market. It is possible we will see a) a new breed of digital cooperative bank a bit like MoneyLion b) old Cooperative Banks that work at the top layer of the stack focussed on customer relations and outsource all tech to Fintech via APIs.
Thursday Patrick Kelahan @insuranceeleph1, our US based Insurtech expert, wrote “InsurTech is still looking for traction with customers and companies’ staff”.
TLDR: Are the InsurTech advocates/enthusiasts ‘preaching to the choir’ and considering that to be conversion of the masses? The choir is the InsurTech press, social media, and conferences. The mass market is the billions of insurance customers, millions of insurance industry staff, and $5 Tn of insurance business. InsurTech is still looking for traction with customers and companies’ staff.
Ed Note: Pat does a great job looking at some unusual data points to describe a contrarian view, by focussing on the customer more than the provider. As in most markets, the buy side (customers) drives more real innovation than the sell side (providers). The providers who listen to the customers will do best. Reading Pat Kelahan is a good way to stay focussed on the customer innovation in Insurtech.
Friday Arunkumar Krishnakumar @karunk, our London based Fintech investor, wrote “Blockchain for branding, as banks see little benefits – WEF reports”
TLDR: A World Economic Forum (WEF) survey, across 79 Blockchain projects in 13 industries, revealed that the RoI on Blockchain projects were projected to be 24% but only achieved 10%. The mantra of Blockchain without Bitcoin has led many to question whether a permission, closed Blockchain is much more than a distributed database. Some Blockchain projects are clearly more about PR & branding than real change.
Ed Note: Arun analyses four core reasons for the slump in Blockchain activities from Banks – technology, business models, legacy integration, cultural barriers to ecosystem building – while emphasising that Blockchain can be a long term strategic solution, rather than a short term quick fix. Arun offers one approach by JP Morgan in corporate banking that may work out well.
Every day we bring you fresh insights about Fintech from an elite group of Authors who are just like you – senior executives, entrepreneurs and investors working in the global Fintech revolution. Once a week we summarise these posts for the time challenged and give you a peek at what you will get by reading the whole article.
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Bernard Lunn is a Fintech deal-maker, investor, entrepreneur and advisor. He is CEO of Daily Fintech and author of The Blockchain Economy.
I have no positions or commercial relationships with the companies or people mentioned (other than Daily Fintech of course). I am not receiving compensation for this post.
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