Thought Leadership Articles
August 2023
Article
Cryptocurrency banks are coming.
Traditional banks can look forward to one more challenge on their already challenged landscape: the emergence of crypto banks to handle, hold and trade cryptocurrencies. Crypto is more like traditional currencies – fiat money – than the traditionalists would like to admit. Fiat money is also digitized, and bills and coins are really just entries on a bank’s ledger. Which sounds like crypto, doesn’t it? So why can’t the vast population successfully investing and trading and paying with crypto get a bank just for themselves. They aren’t even asking for free coffee.
August 2023
Article
Digital Cross Border Payments Are the Key to Global Financial Inclusion.
With large swaths of the global population less able to share in the wealth created by greater global commerce, the G20 set out in 2020 to support new technologies that might eradicate poverty and enable income equality by enhancing cross border payments that will encourage financial inclusion.
July 2023
Article
Psychometric Testing: A Catalyst for Credit Appraisal at Financial Institutions
Alternative credit scoring models are the most widely used methods for assessing borrower risk in developing countries worldwide. They have various benefits for financial institutions, such as lower costs and increased credit assessment accuracy. Modern technology allows alternative credit scoring models to outperform inefficient, traditional models of credit scoring – those traditional models are becoming obsolete. Psychometric testing is one such alternative model. Psychometric testing is designed to objectively measure personality traits to assess a potential borrower’s credit risk. The biggest challenge encountered in assessing a potential borrower is determining their true intentions for seeking a loan.
July 2023
Article
Tearing down the borders of cross border payments
The world has opened up and currencies are being moved at a pace unseen in human history. Cross border payments play a positive role in both the economies and politics of countries all over the globe, and banks have for too long held the process of cross border payments hostage. According to Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier of iBanFirst, “…the cross-border payments market has been dominated by the banking industry, with little room for new entrants, let alone competitors.”
June 2023
Article
To end world poverty, it’s time we banked the unbanked.
Financial inclusion will be a necessary strategy to begin to “bank” the “unbanked.” According to the World Bank, approximately 1.7 billion people worldwide do not have access to formal financial services. Well, that’s the combined populations of both the US and Europe. This type of financial exclusion hampers any prospect for socioeconomic advancement, impedes economic growth, keeps a tremendous amount of people in poverty, and fuels political destabilization. In short, being unbanked, being excluded from existing financial services, threatens world peace and prosperity.
May 2023
Article
Payment Modernization is How Your Digital Transformation Starts
It’s hard to believe, but some of the world’s most sophisticated companies still haven’t modernized their payment systems. Without doing so, they can’t focus on their end users, or continuously protect and grow revenue streams. Payment modernization is essential for companies not just to thrive in the 21st century, but to survive. The accepted truths about modernizing payment is that it might not MAKE you money, but not doing it will surely LOSE you money. And for many companies, though they might not GAIN customers, they will surely LOSE them.
April 2023
Article
Of Course, Money Transactions are Going Mobile. Everything Else Has
A casual glance around any restaurant or any place people gather will tell you that, by and large, people are more connected to their mobile phones than they are to each other. Any parent with a child knows that one of the best ways to keep them quiet is by letting them play with a mobile phone. Any parent with a teen knows that they would rather engage with their phone than with you. And so, it is no surprise that making mobile money transactions will be the only way we will buy, send, and receive money in the very near future. Very near, like in now.
April 2023
Article
Cross-border Remittances Must Come into the 21st Century with Cryptocurrencies
A young art buyer sights a painting from a French artist and wants to purchase it, but at the time of purchase, she discovers she has to send the money cross border to the artist’s bank account in Paris. She tries to make the payment via her online banking platform but is thwarted by the strict regulations. When she speaks to her bank’s representative, she’s informed of the complications: conversion rates, wire fees, taxes and more. Worse, there’s a daily limit on the amount she can send. But the artist’s bank also has strict anti-fraud measures that require additional documentation. At the end of an arduous and frustrating process, she finally gets the painting she wanted, but with cost of time and frustration, she vows never to do this again.
March 2023
Article
BANK PARTNERSHIPS and FINTECHS | The Essential Collaboration for a Thriving Financial Sector
“Two heads are better than one,” the saying goes. Partnerships and collaborations are vital to all sectors of business and culture. Successful partnerships help create businesses and products, allowing them to compete and thrive. One area where partnerships are proving essential is in the financial sector, particularly in the realm of bank partnerships with fintech companies.
March 2023
Article
Cross-Border Payments: Challenges, Impact and Solutions
Cross-border payments are an essential aspect of the global economy, allowing individuals and businesses to transact with each other across different countries and currencies. However, the current cross-border payment mechanisms utilized by financial institutions suffer from several defects, including inefficiencies, delays, and high costs. These defects can hinder economic growth and limit financial inclusion, making it imperative to understand the root causes of these issues and explore potential solutions.
March 2023
Article
When it comes to cross-border payments, what’s in your digital wallet?
It’s safe to say that the pandemic changed a lot of things and will continue to do so for business, government, health care, society, and individuals. One category that accelerated beyond its normal rate of evolution (Moore’s Law) was, and continues to be, technology. With the payments industry, the changes have been at a whip-lash intensity. Not only did we need to rely on and improve the technology, but customers making money transfer decisions also demanded more: multiple platforms and channels, speed, flexibility, transparency, and security.
March 2023
Article
How TD Bank Bolsters The Community Reinvestment Act
Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ brought us a time when banks were a cornerstone of the well-being of their communities. Everybody knew everyone’s name and banks were true neighbors. The award-winning movie’s altruistic protagonist, George Baily, was even willing to give up his dreams so he could help his little town of Bedford Falls. Well, that was a long time ago and boy, have banks changed! They have detached themselves from their communities and, instead, attached themselves to their shareholders. Which is why George Baily would applaud the partnership between TD Bank and the Community Reinvestment Act.
February 2023
Article
Governance for DeFi: Don’t kill the Goose with Centralized Governance
Are fund managers ready to take the plunge into DeFi (decentralized finance)? How will they find ways to monetize investor interest as prices for cryptocurrencies have slumped? Digital assets, though speculative, will continue to scale and adapt as the pace of regulation increases.
“Financial institutions need to secure their place in this potentially huge new revenue stream by integrating Web3 and digital assets into their business models and services.” — Guide to Next
February 2023
Article
The Positive Social Impact of Digital Cross Border Payments
The world is moving at breakneck speed, and it’s time our money kept up. The positive benefits of instituting a sophisticated, robust, secure, and global system of digital remittances are obvious and the demand is great.
January 2023
Article
The global promise of Blockchain must not be derailed.
USA — A lot of early inventions that we use and count on everyday were ridiculed when they were first invented and exposed to a jittery public.
The shock of the new creates jealousy, distrust, and resistance. Edison’s light bulb was considered a sham. In 1878, the Brits declared that the light bulbmight be”good enough for our Transatlantic friends… but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men.”
January 2023
Article
Can Crypto Be Trusted?
The recent collapse of FTX, as well as the ongoing ripple effects, has casted world wide skepticism on the cryptocurrency industry. While this is expected, it does not mean that the entire block-chain based industry should be avoided. Instead these collapses should reinforce the importance of the basic principles of which blockchain based transactions were founded on: fast global settlement, no need for central authority, trust minimization of 3rd parties, open source code, and the ability to independently verify transactions and balances via publicly auditable ledgers.
January 2023
Article
It’s time to reinvent remittances!
With a focus on revolutionizing the long dormant financial sector, FinTech is creating new applications to meet a rapidly changing landscape, and the tipping point to the use of these technologies is in remittances, a key chokepoint to the transfer of monies, locally and globally.
Article
December 2022
As digital transformation of payments in B2B becomes essential, Fintech steps up
It comes as no surprise that the computer system developed in the 1970’s – Automated Clearing House (ACH) – still serves as the default technology for many businesses today. Overhauling this system to meet the essential need for complete digital transformation on the part of banks and payment systems has been an uphill battle. Which is why the digital revolution in emerging markets, historically viewed as being less developed, and led and informed by Fintech startups, should give pause to the leaders of our C-suites and boardrooms.
December 2022
Article
Cryptocurrency and Blockchain: It’s time for a little positive disruption
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have entered the mainstream consciousness in a dramatic and disruptive fashion and are no longer sitting on the outskirts of acceptable alternatives to our challenged, compromised, and ancient financial system.
Article
November 2022
Financial Institutions Bet on Crypto’s Staying Power Despite Market Losses
The reports of crypto’s demise may be greatly exaggerated, at least if recent moves by several big payment giants are any indication. In June, the price of Bitcoin, a flagship crypto token, lost a third of its value and dipped below the psychologically important threshold of $20,000. Other key crypto prices followed suit, and an estimated $2 trillion in crypto wealth was wiped out in a matter of days.
July 2022
Article
Moving Capital Across Borders With Crypto
The United Nations estimates that about one billion people are supported in part by remittance payments. In a world where virtually all services have been accelerated and made more efficient by interoperability and telecommunications, international money transfers seem to have been left behind. The reality is that most remittances today still rely on technology and methods that were available decades or centuries ago. This lack of innovation has led to two main issues: slow-moving capital and high fees.
Article
May 2022
Is Fintech a Tool for Social Justice?
Traditional finance often only benefits those who are financially established. Low-income customers may get left in the dark and are unable to utilize the same tools and resources with which higher net worth individuals are accustomed. This inequality is even more apparent in emerging markets where people are often unbanked or underserved. According to the World Bank, more than 1.7 billion adults do not have an account at a financial institution or through a mobile money provider. However, that is all changing as Fintech continues to completely change the way that we interact with the financial industry.