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Future

Leading UK Fintech Firms Now Working with PwC to Streamline Digital Financial Services with AI, Data Analytics

Ten of the United Kingdom’s leading Fintech companies are now working with Big Four auditing firm PwC in order to showcase how the future of banking will focus on both collaboration and innovation, along with greater personalization.

After 3 years of ongoing development, the 10 Fintechs have managed to contribute to the company’s “Tysl” ecosystem which includes various solutions related to software, automation, AI, data management and analytics.

These solutions aim to make it easier or more convenient for clients to open new bank accounts, obtain specialized financing services, move house and digitally sign official documents.

By leveraging an API-powered approach, which lets software apps communicate with each other, Tysl has enabled these firms to work cooperatively and innovate together with PwC to create a banking tech proposition that helps organizations with significantly enhancing performance across several different measures.

This includes dealing with complex customer or user experience journeys like advanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Know Your Customer (KYC), Credit Decisioning, and in life account and loan servicing across several key areas such as mortgages, savings and corporate lending.

By leveraging Tysl, PwC can effectively develop all-digital solutions through an innovative, affordable, and user-centric online lending platform. This can help the company’s customers with enhancing their customer-facing business operations and improve products and services in order to meet the speed and multi-channel expectations required by companies today.

James Morgan, Lead Partner on Tysl stated:

“Banking is changing, people expect more and require personalised digital interactions. Based on the needs and expectations of tomorrow’s customers, we have developed our Tysl platform. This is helping our clients reach new customers, upsell and grow topline revenue by delivering enhanced capabilities whilst significantly reducing the costs of servicing the client from onboarding to in life servicing.”

The companies or businesses that are now integrated with the Tysl platform include:

Mambu – is a software-as-a-service or SaaS financial services platform supporting innovation in banking, lending, and – a Cloud-native alternative to more traditional core banking systems.

Yoti – is a global identity platform that makes it more seamless and safer for banking clients to prove who they are via ID verification and biometrics

Kompli Global – created a remote due diligence solution that harnesses artificial intelligence and “human expertise” to provide intelligence on organizations and their workers.

DueDil – is an insights provider assisting financial services organizations and insurers with a better understanding of their client base to handle digital or online onboarding, manage compliance, risk, and in-life monitoring.

Just Move In – provides a home setup experience for people moving home that arranges essential services including council tax, insurance, and broadband.

SignNow – is a legally binding eSignature application, allows users to create and complete legally binding electronic signatures on any device.

Codat – connects the tools and services that small businesses need for their operations to their financial service providers and takes care of the “heavy lifting” of those integrations.

Flexys – is a specialist tech firm focused on enhancing the value and performance of debt management and collection systems with a low-code, Cloud-native platform.

Saltedge – develops PSD2-powered solutions that are used by Fintech firms, banking institutions, and other financial institutions across the globe. The company provides connectivity to over 2500 banks across Europe for data aggregation and payment initiation capabilities – through a single API.

Credit Kudos -an open banking credit reference agency that uses real-time financial behavior to “measure creditworthiness” and “affordability” to assist lenders when unwriting consumer and commercial loans.

Lendingmetrics – Auto Decision Platform (ADP) is a decision engine environment that may be applied across “unlimited” brands, products or lending journeys under a single license and offers a comprehensive (no-code) editor, helping non-technical staff to make real-time changes to credit risk logic

Gazeal – enables the seller of a property to provide key details required to meet the estate agent’s Consumer Protection Regulations requirements, and, as a Licensed Provider of the Law Society, all of the requirements of the Conveyancing Quality Scheme. By using Gazeal’s reservation service, it will “almost” completely eliminate abortive transactions.

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Toddler hodler: 3-year-old Bitcoin educator interviews Michael Saylor

Three year old Lily Knight, “the world’s youngest Bitcoin educator,” interviewed billionaire MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor for her YouTube channel in a video that dropped April 13.

In the interview, Lily noted that Saylor’s accumulation of more than $2 billion worth of Bitcoin since August 2020 had been a “ballsy move.”

The toddler and unconfirmed “hodler” became something of a vial sensation in the crypto space in mid February after she (aided by her parents) published a video explaining Bitcoin’s dynamics using Skittles candy.

The video caught the attention of Saylor and fellow crypto billionaire Tyler Winklevoss and both retweeted the video. Winklevoss added that “Lily, a 3-year-old, understands Bitcoin better than most central bankers.”

Lily’s father noted in a Reddit thread that the “ridiculous idea” to interview Saylor had come after he reached out to thank the corporate world’s biggest Bitcoin cheerleader for retweeting the video. Saylor was responsive to the idea. Her father revealed that the video required a lot of editing, as he had to “plead and bribe” Lily to sit still, as they pre-recorded the questions for the MicroStrategy founder to answer later:

“We recorded her side of the interview and then zoomed with him and played her questions, pausing after each one for him to answer. I wish we could do it live, but she’s so unpredictable at this age .. she just might break out into a Frozen song or something lol Maybe when she’s a little older.”

The first question Lily asked was: “When did you first buy Bitcoin? What convinced you to buy?”. Saylor said that he’d been searching for new treasury strategies to preserve shareholder value in March 2020, due to a “gnawing suspicion that the money was broken”. Saylor added that:

“I went on a mad quest to find a solution. And I was delighted to discover Bitcoin, a store of value over long periods of time. So once I discovered Bitcoin and understood all of its characteristics as a digital monitoring network, I started buying it and I haven’t stopped.”

The young “crypto educator” said that, “A lot of people are confused by Bitcoin” and asked Saylor “What do you think is the biggest misconception?”. The billionaire said people often characterize Bitcoin as purely an investment idea or speculative asset, however, he describes it as the “world’s first monitoring network”:

“Bitcoin is the world’s first digital monitoring network, and it’s a technology. And when you start thinking of it as a better technology for money, then you realize that it’s not just a trade. It’s actually a way to think about the world.”

This may have gone over Lily’s head.

She finished up by asking: “What’s next for you?” with Saylor responding that that he’s looking forward to doing everything he can to spread Bitcoin to billions of people and also to educate the world on the benefits of Bitcoin”

“And when I get some free time, I’m going to buy myself some more Bitcoin,” he added.

Toddler hodler: 3-year-old Bitcoin educator interviews Michael Saylor

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Solana (SOL) price rises as airdrops attract new users to the network

Over the past six months blockchain projects that have issued token airdrops have re-emerged. Most notably, the airdrops by Uniswap (UNI) and MEME will be remembered as recipients were rewarded with gains ranging from $20,000 to $600,000 simply for holding the tokens.

One Ethereum (ETH) competitor that has seen numerous projects launch with airdrops in the past three weeks is Solana (SOL), an open-source project that focuses on utilizing blockchain technology to provide decentralized finance solutions.

While Solana isn’t explicitly making a concerted effort to launch these projects, the protocol’s main decentralized exchange Serum (SRM) was responsible for the recent COPE airdrop which distributed 2,000 tokens to users who participated in the joint DeFi hackathon held by Solana and Serum.

After the airdrop, COPE eventually listed on Serum for $0.50 on March 30 and the price of the token surged to a high of $5.43 on April 11, rewarding holders with a $10,860 reward.

SOL/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The success of the COPE airdrop prompted a series of token launches and airdrops with similar-sounding names including HOPE, ROPE and KOPE, whose launches on the Solana blockchain have coincided with a 55% rise in the price of SOL since the start of April.

Airdrops on the network may have played a small role in the recent price appreciation due to users needing SOL to receive airdropped tokens but this is not possible to ascertain based on the available data.

Interactions on the Solana blockchain, including the addition of new tokens to the Sollet wallet, require small amounts of SOL to complete the contract executions. Thus, users rushing to sign up for airdrops before they filled up would have needed to purchase SOL and fund their wallets in order to create new addresses for the airdropped tokens.

Analysts expect the airdrop trend to continue

For those worried that they missed out or that the ‘airdrop season’ is over, a recent tweet from Solana’s Twitter feed suggests that the Solana ecosystem is just getting started, meaning the likelihood of future airdrops remains high.

New users are the lifeblood of successful blockchain networks, and the use of airdrops continues to be one of the most utilized methods for drawing attention to fledgling projects and sapping liquidity from one protocol to another.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Solana (SOL) price rises as airdrops attract new users to the network

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ZA Tech Global, the Technology Initiative Backed by Softbank Vision Fund I, Launches Asia Fintech Center

ZA Tech Global Limited, the technology venture established by ZA International and supported by Softbank’s Vision Fund 1, revealed on Friday (April 9, 2021) that it’s launching its Asia Fintech Center (AFC) in Singapore. The new center will focus on financial services innovation projects and it will also assist industry participants in the region so they can develop new products that will accelerate their digital transformation strategies.

The AFC launch is reportedly a global first for ZA Tech, as the business increases its focus on supporting the vision of providing a unified tech platform that aims to support the future of financial services and offer access to underserved consumers.

The Singapore-headquartered Center will aim to address specific use-cases in insurance and the financial services sector with assistance from industry partners. It will initially work on various insurance use-cases by co-developing innovative projects with ASEAN region-based insurance service providers. It will also work with local academic institutions or universities to develop appropriate Fintech-related expertise and talent.

Bill Song, CEO of ZA Tech, stated:

“We partner with industry players to strive to boldly redefine financial services, and the AFC is an important pillar of making that happen. As we have entered 2021, the year the internet economy continues to rapidly reshape consumer expectations across Asia, digital transformation is becoming as crucial as ever for financial services firms. AFC will bring together technology, talent and partner network to build innovative propositions that fit closely with the evolving customer expectations across both online and O2O and to help financial services prepare for the next chapter of the digital revolution.”

George Kesselman, Head of Commercial for ZA Tech, remarked:

“I am incredibly proud of the work that the team is doing with our partners in the region. AFC will allow us to bring collaboration to the next level by launching new innovative use-cases and enable rapid product-market fit testing and iteration. Southeast Asia is the major epicentre of financial services transformation. We strongly believe that Singapore, as the hub of innovation and talent in the region with its innovation friendly environment and forward oriented regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore, provides the perfect location to launch and scale fintech innovation across Southeast Asia.”

ZA Tech is the tech platform for ZA International that focuses on expanding its global operations by teaming up with major internet firms and financial services companies based in Southeast Asia, Japan and Europe. ZA Tech offers technical solutions and professional services as well.

ZA Tech aims to digitally transform the insurance sector by working with several different customer technology platforms. It’s focused on creating innovative insurance solutions while offering the digital core system to insurers as the infrastructure for their distribution.

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Fidelity’s Tom Jessop says crypto has hit a ‘tipping point’

Executives at investment giant Fidelity are confident that cryptocurrency market momentum will continue for the foreseeable future.

Speaking to MarketWatch on April 8, Tom Jessop who heads the investment firm’s crypto division said that he believes crypto has opened a new chapter in traditional finance circles and things have reached a tipping point for the industry.

Jessop stated that the maturation and adoption of crypto assets as an investment class will continue at a rapid pace in the coming years. There are a number of reasons according to the finance manager, one of which is extremely low interest rates in traditional finance.

This, coupled with an environment stimulated by monetary policies, has driven momentum for crypto markets. The Fidelity executive said that this environment is unlikely to change any time soon:

“I think we’ve reached a tipping point. I think you’ve had the accumulated experience of now roughly 12 years of the Bitcoin blockchain being operative since the genesis block in early 2009. And the pandemic, quite frankly, was a catalyst for institutional adoption, and specifically Bitcoin and the narrative, or use-case, around digital gold,”

Jessop added the narrative has been exacerbated by the unprecedented monetary stimulus from central banks and governments in response to the pandemic.

Since the pandemic began, U.S. stimulus packages have topped $6 trillion with much of that money being freshly minted by the Federal Reserve.

Jessop is not the only finance executive to believe that Bitcoin and crypto has reached a tipping point. In early March, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz used the same phrase while commenting on the CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF on Bloomberg:

“Bitcoin adoption has hit a tipping point and investors don’t want to sit on the sidelines,”

On March 24, Fidelity filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to list a new Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF). The Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust aims to track the asset’s daily performance using the Fidelity Bitcoin Index PR, an index derived from several price feeds.

Analyst at CFRA Research, VanEck, and Fidelity Investments, Todd Rosenbluth, opined that the SEC is likely to approve an ETF in the coming year or two.

Fidelity created the digital asset unit in 2019 and has been integrating digital assets into traditional investment portfolios ever since.

Fidelity’s Tom Jessop says crypto has hit a ‘tipping point’

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