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Social-media giant Facebook comfortably beat analysts’ estimates across earnings, revenues and active users for the fourth quarter of 2020. “We had a strong end to the year as people and businesses continued to use our services during these challenging times,” explained Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and chief executive officer.

And so, after perhaps the most turbulent election and transition period in American history, Joseph R. Biden Jr. was finally confirmed as the new president of the United States. Despite numerous unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, dozens of rejected lawsuits and an unprecedented assault on the nation’s Capitol building

The payments industry has entered a new era. The way we transacted changed as we physically separated – accelerating the shift to digital commerce that was already underway long before the pandemic hit. And, the way consumers transact will continue to be shaped by this new normal long after the pandemic subsides.

As the months roll on, the full effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have become clearer across the globe. Without a doubt, among the hardest hit regions has been Latin America. But despite the difficult health situation, banking systems have, so far, responded well to the socio-economic impacts of the crisis.

“Success in creating effective AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don’t know. So, we cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI, or ignored by it and side-lined, or conceivably destroyed by it,” noted physicist Stephen Hawking postulated in 2017, shortly before his death.

In October 2015, the alternative-data company Eagle Alpha published its research on GoPro, the popular action camera company, with much of its findings having been determined by using web-scraping techniques. “The data from US electronics websites pointed to potential weakness in GoPro revenue for the third quarter of that year,” Eagle Alpha noted.

By now, most of us will have at least heard of the Internet of things (IoT), with many excitedly anticipating the realm of possibilities that the collection and utilisation of data by IoT devices will eventually offer. Among those possibilities is the invaluable insight that this data will provide, particularly with regards to our interests, preferences and regular habits and practices.

As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, financial institutions all across the world are under intense pressure to improve efficiency, reduce costs and boost productivity. Indeed, there is now a considerable global need for the financial-services industry to evolve comprehensively from traditional, age-old business models.

“We have only just overcome the liquidity phase of the crisis in countries that are now relaxing restrictions. In many others, the health crisis is still acute. And the epidemic could flare up again anywhere,” the general manager, Agustin Carstens, of Bank for International Settlements (BIS) acknowledged in late June whilst discussing the Bank’s 2020 “Annual Economic Report”.

It has been an unusually eventful year for central banks all over the world in 2020, and given the current circumstances, the coming year is set to be no less busy. With a variety of challenges to overcome, therefore, central banks hope to achieve several important goals before the end of 2021.