This weekly summary from our 8 experts, brings you insights based on their experience as investors, entrepreneurs & executives.
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Your Editor is Bernard Lunn. He is also the CEO of Daily Fintech and author of The Blockchain Economy and occasional opinion columnist.
Monday Ilias Hatzis our Greece-based crypto entrepreneur (Founder & CEO at Mercato Blockchain Corporation AG and Weekly Columnist at Daily Fintech) @iliashatzis wrote Bridging fiat and crypto, payments and purchases
Last week Binance announced that it acquired Swipe, a multi-currency digital wallet and Visa debit card platform. Swipe lets users pay for products using their cryptocurrency with online merchants and in stores around the world. Binance and Swipe plan to work together to “further mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies by bridging the gap between fiat and digital assets, notably payments and purchases in cryptocurrency through traditional financial systems.” In 2020, the number of online buyers is expected to be 2.05 billion, 26.28% of the 7.8 billion people in the world. One out of every four people is an online shopper. People in the crypto market often speculate what it will take for crypto achieve mass adoption. Using crypto for payments is certainly at the top of the list. When you can pay for your vacation using crypto or split the bill at dinner? These conversations are usually lopsided focused on the benefit for consumers, but it takes two tango. We don’t just need to educate more consumers on the value of financial empowerment crypto can give them, but also merchants about the value of accepting cryptocurrency payments.
Editor note: Tomorrow crypto might replace banks and credit card networks. That prize is huge but hard to reach. That is why today we are in the bridge mode with debit cards.
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Tuesday Efi Pylarinou @efipm our Swiss-based Fintech Adviser, founder of Efi Pylarinou Advisory and a Fintech/Blockchain influencer – No.3 influencer in the finance sector by Refinitiv Global Social Media 2019 wrote An economic system with growing gaps and an upside down model
The interaction of Humans and Machines is becoming more core to my focus. Finance is an integral part of our socio-economic fabric and Artificial intelligence (in a very broad sense) is shaping an increasing part of Fintech innovation.
In this post I am inspired from some of the points we raised in the great conversation in June which was part of the Thinkathon of Fintech.TV spearheaded by Dr. Jane Thomason. (Watch Future Economic System and the Role of the Democratic State) with Emily Landis-Walker, Lord (Chris) Holmes MBE, Lawrence Wintermeyer, Loretta Joseph and myself.
Editor note: Efi looks at the critical and complex subject of the growing gap between technology innovation and social innovation.
Alan Scott Managing Director EMEA at 24 Exchange @Alan_SmartMoney wrote Stablecoin News for week ending Tuesday 14 July 2020
This weekly snapshot is the news that matters in the Stablecoin market. The focus this week is “Who takes the risk, owns it”.
Wednesday Jessica Ellerm @jessicaellerm, our Australia-based Fintech entrepreneur and thought leader specializing in Small Business and the Gig Economy & CEO/Co-Founder of Zuper, a new superannuation startup in Australia wrote Bounce Back Business Loans A Bumpy Ride For Fintech Players
In a surprising twist of fate, non-bank SME lenders in the UK look set to take a back seat when it comes to gaining market share from incumbents over the next 6 to 12 months, despite unprecedented demand from small business owners for emergency credit.
Last week, Tide, a non-bank lender that had signed up to the UK government’s Bounce Back Lending Scheme (BBLS), announced it would be withdrawing from the scheme, having failed to raise additional capital to keep lending.
Editor note: Jessica looks at one reason some small neobanks are having trouble.
Wednesday Bernard Lunn @lunnbernard, the CEO of Daily Fintech and author of The Blockchain Economy, wrote: Real time settlement in private capital markets via Security Tokens revealed in our interview with Ami Ben-David of Ownera.
Trading and Settlement in Legacy Finance is the story of the Ferrari and the Donkey.
We measure trading in fractions of a second. That is the Ferrari. Then we climb out of that speed machine and get onto the old grey donkey to do settlement in days (T+1 or 2). All of that changes when we move to Real Time Settlement or to be more technically accurate – concurrent Delivery Versus Payment (DVP), which was defined by Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in 1992 (but had to wait for Satoshi Nakamoto to make it technically feasible in 2009).
Editor note: Maybe this is the innovation – real time settlement in private markets – that is the missing piece in the Security Tokens puzzle.
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Thursday Patrick Kelahan @insuranceeleph1, our US based Insurtech expert (a CX, engineering & insurance professional, working with Insurers, Attorneys & Owners who also serves the insurance and Fintech world as the ‘Insurance Elephant’) wrote Curation of news pieces suggests no easy Cure for COVID Costs
Healthcare cost and availability, and business interruption cover litigation- strange bedfellows with commonality- overarching need within economies for resolution for each multi-hundred billion dollar/euro/rupee/pound issue. Ironies abound- enormous need for healthcare due to COVID-19 should prompt revenue growth for providers, and closures of businesses due to government dictates due to COVID should prompt a rescuing flow of business interruption funding from insurance policies, yet in each case the respective systems did not provide.
Editor note: If you work in Insurance this is a must read. If you are the 99.999% who do NOT work in Insurance, you can hope that those who DO work in Insurance will read this.
Thursday Christian Dreyer @x3er, our Swiss based CFA who focusses on how XBRL changes our world wrote XBRL: reporting in the EU (banks & issuers) and health data everywhere
Editor note: This weekly snapshot is the news that matters in the XBRL market.
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Friday Howard Tolman, a well-known banker, technologist and entrepreneur in London, wrote: Alt Lending: Zombie Companies, Revitalising Banks, Covid 19 rescue Loans
Editor note: This weekly snapshot is the news that matters in the Alt Lending market.
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