How will 2021 be a catalyst for the future of financial services?
LinkedIn
January 05, 2021
With challenges come opportunities. How will 2021 be the catalyst for another wave of innovation and transformative applications of technologies within financial services and the industries that surround it? While we don’t (yet) have artificial intelligence that can predict the future, we certainly have seen so many iterative ideas rearrange banking’s business model.
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Tags: Cloud, Digital Transformation, Fintech
2020: A dumpster fire year
LinkedIn
December 22, 2020
It will be extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible, to find one word or even one phrase to describe 2020. For many, it was a year of broken dreams and hardship. A global pandemic, coupled with a racial reckoning, leaving many of us feeling lost and exhausted.
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Tags: Startups, Fintech, Leadership
Longevity is the gift of time
LinkedIn
December 17, 2020
Longevity isn’t always associated with decline; we all start getting older the minute we are born. Yet, why is it such a taboo to talk about aging, even as we get older? What does it matter that we are blowing more candles on our birthday cake — after a moment of arbitrary time? Surely we have nothing against cake. But candles?
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Tags: Social, Fintech, Leadership
If you were a fintech genie...
LinkedIn
December 15, 2020
If you were a fintech genie in 2020, what wish would you grant?
For a year that is far from normal, with many of us being socially isolated, our first ‘obvious’ choice would have been: To be able to meet people in person.
As much as we have lamented the hassle of travel and as much as we appreciate the convenience of virtual conferences, after months of being cooped up in a house (many of us with small children doing distance learning), we can’t wait to actually be out and about to attend a live event, to have a cup of coffee or share a meal with our colleagues — rediscover the joy of serendipity moments.
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Tags: Innovation, Fintech, Leadership
We are here but to serve
LinkedIn
December 10, 2020
When we talk about digital banking nowadays, chances are, the conversation might quickly turn to one of the challenger banks launched the past few years — one likely positioning themselves as a new way of “X”. This would come along with their simplified user experience and bright colors designed just perfectly for those always-elusive millennials drawn like moths to a flame toward that ever-present metal card. The conversation would drift toward user engagement, bundles of perfectly unique user workflows, how much better these metrics were compared to incumbent banks, and how technology was changing the very dynamic of the business.
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Tags: Fintech, Management, Leadership
How Can Data Power the Money Experience?
LinkedIn
December 09, 2020
One thing that technology platforms from Amazon to Google to Facebook know is the value of data. These platforms know more about us — through how we use our mobile devices and applications, where we go, how we search, and what we buy — but to what end?
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Tags: Big Data, Management, Leadership
Accelerating the digital future in banking
LinkedIn
December 03, 2020
If you feel like we have accelerated digitally 3 years in 3 months, you are not alone. From grocery delivery to curbside pickup, consumers have adopted new habits in the shadow of the pandemic; or in some ways, re-adopted old habits (such as drive-through banking). As more people switch to online and acquire digital alternatives to in-person collaboration, exercise, retail, and healthcare, businesses must adapt to the fast-changing world.
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Tags: Cloud, Digital Transformation, Fintech
How to Keep Relationships With Your Customers Alive? The Money Experience.
LinkedIn
November 30, 2020
In a year where physical relationships have been completely eclipsed by the necessity for more digital means. This has created a renewed sense of urgency toward revamping experiences designed to improve customer engagement, reduce friction, add transparency, and retain critical connectivity — especially as we all sought out added reassurance during this time of crisis.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Leadership
New era demands new ways of thinking
LinkedIn
November 17, 2020
We live in a transformative time. From all aspects of living, working, and learning, our activities are increasingly taking place in the online world. Will COVID-19 become the tipping point for further digital transformation, just as how the Great Blizzard of 1978 became the trigger for ATM adoption?
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Tags: Cloud, Digital Transformation, Fintech
Future of Work: Gig work, 1099s, and I feel fine?
LinkedIn
November 13, 2020
Is the future of work destined to be more transitory in nature? Will we all move from an average of twelve jobs in a lifetime to dozens upon dozens of gig work experiences, some lasting mere hours or weeks rather than years?
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Tags: Fintech, Future of Work, COVID19
Sign at the dotted line
LinkedIn
November 11, 2020
While customer needs are changing, the goal of a customer-centric organization has always been to deliver exceptional customer service, when the customers want it, and how they want it.
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Tags: Customer Experience, Fintech
Cloud at the heart of digital transformation
LinkedIn
November 09, 2020
The year 2020 has been transformative in many ways. We have adapted new ways of working and learning - and propelled new digital trends in a condensed time frame. New habits are formed, alongside new concerns and challenges – all of which have technology at the core.
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Tags: Cloud, Digital Transformation, Fintech
The story of data
LinkedIn
October 30, 2020
A picture says a thousand words, the saying goes. But what about the endless streams of data underlying those images? Or that which deciphers the broader picture of our digital activities and footprints? If data could talk — what kind of picture would it paint? What stories would it tell?
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Tags: AI, Fintech
Future re-imagined: With purpose and urgency
LinkedIn
October 22, 2020
When we look back at 2020, how would we remember this year? Surely, we would remember the weight of this global pandemic and the lives lost. The year has transformed every aspect of our lives — from how we work to where we work. With most of us socially isolated at home, organizations have had to adapt, technology has driven our labor and, for better or likely for the worse, the education of our children.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Fintech
The week that was — October 2
LinkedIn
October 02, 2020
I still remember the conversations over the past few years with Jimmy Chen, founder of Propel, a NY-based fintech that helps make SNAP more user-friendly while improving consumer financial health. One thing that he said in our podcast resonated with me a great deal: “People solve problems that they understand. The reality is that people who have the means to start a new company, or join a major bank and start a new initiative, generally come from a certain background that is not representative of everybody in the United States, especially that of low-income America.”
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Tags: Fintech, Leadership, COVID19
My word of the year: Trust
linkedin
December 30, 2019
New year is a time for reflection, when we look back at the year that was, and the journey that we have embarked on. It is a time when we reflect on our relationships with our friends, our work, and our family.
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Tags: Big Data, Privacy
FinTech Genie 2020
linkedin
December 20, 2019
What happens when you solicit your friends for what is on their fintech wish list? You open the floodgates, just like you when you ask your kids what they would want for the holidays. So what are our collective asks from the fintech genie, the generous one who grants more than just three wishes? Here’s what we would like to see.
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Tags: Fintech
Predictably unpredictable: Fintech trends for 2020
linkedin
December 14, 2019
As 2020 approaches, what does your crystal ball foresee for the world of financial services? How will China’s influence play out in Asia and beyond? What is the next iteration of the challenger bank model, super apps and platforms, and fintechs beyond payments and credit? Can broader societal challenges such as sustainability and the climate crisis finally make significant strides in how and where we invest? How will the financial needs of customers change in the new decade and how will banks react to all of this?
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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Fintech
Heist for bytes
linkedin
December 06, 2019
Cybersecurity’s impact on financial services
2019 has been a banner year for cybersecurity incidents, with hackers targeting various state and local governments as well as private corporations. According to Varonis, hackers attack every 39 seconds, on average, 2244 times a day. In the first half of 2019 alone, data breaches exposed 4.1 billion records, and the average cost of a data breach was $3.92 million. Not only are cybersecurity issues costly, they are also damaging to the brands. Some of the recent high-profile incidents include the Target data breach that exposed 40 million
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Tags: Cybersecurity, Fintech
A FinTech Thanksgiving - With Added Gravy
linkedin
November 27, 2019
The end of the year always seems to bring on moments of reflection, a time to think about the year just past, to be thankful for the gifts and experiences we have received, the lessons we have learned, and the memories and moments that inspire us to move forward.
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Tags: Fintech
AI in Financial Services - In Data We Trust
linkedin
November 21, 2019
This past year has been a busy one for emerging technologies, especially in regard to artificial intelligence (AI). AI startup funding reached a record high of US $7.4 billion during the second quarter of 2019, according to CB Insights. From healthcare to financial services, from digital surveillance to education, new use cases continue to emerge – along with headlines on the dangers and opportunities of such concentrated power. This is hardly surprising, given an increasingly digital economy and that our daily lives are increasingly powered by personalized data.
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Tags: AI, Big Data, Fintech
March of the Pays
linkedin
November 15, 2019
2019 has been a whirlwind year for payments. Multiple mega deals were made, including the acquisition of Worldpay by FIS, buyout of TSYS by Global Payments, and Fiserv’s acquisition of First Data. Most recently, German-based Wirecard has agreed to acquire AllScore Payment Services, a Chinese payments group, for up to €109 million, following the footsteps of PayPal’s purchase of Gopay Information Technology, another Chinese payments group.
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Tags: Fintech
Digital Only Banks: Challenge we will - or not
linkedin
November 08, 2019
Are consumers finally ready to go all in with digital banking and ditch their branches? Some seem to think so, as a recent survey by Provident Bank indicated that “more than three-fourths of consumers prefer to deal with their bank through online and mobile channels.”
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Tags: Innovation, Startups, Fintech
Build what matters - The unglamorous side of financial services
linkedin
November 01, 2019
Nothing like a natural disaster to bring us back to reality. Food, water, shelter, clean air, along with power and wifi, the basic modern day necessities that we need to survive. Things that we take for granted. And when it comes down to it though, it is the human connection – the communities that we live in and the bonds that we forge, that matters. We look at the unglamorous side of financial services in this episode.
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Tags: Fintech
A New Journey. A New Hope.
linkedin
October 24, 2019
By Bradley Leimer and Theodora Lau
A New Journey. There it was. Clarity around an ongoing thesis. Somewhere on the train outside of Bordeaux, reflecting on an article critical of Amazon and what had been discussed on stage earlier in the week, there was a bit of a revelation. There is something galvanizing about the art of travel that clears the mind and adds perspective to what you experience every day, and how the words and lives of strangers settle in your mind.
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Tags: Startups, Fintech