“Plan for radical change, or prepare for obsolescence” was the recent message from former Apple CEO John Sculley in reference to the banking sector’s latest digital innovation: the chatbot. As part of the ongoing fintech revolution, mobile-messaging applications are now being adopted around the world at an astronomical rate.
Blockchain, the technology underlying bitcoin, is poised to enter the mainstream with about 30 medium and large banks planning to put it into use by 2017. Applications range from reference data (real-time sharing of information about transactions within a bank and with external parties), retail payments, consumer lending and trade finance.
Brent crude prices have seen a consistent decline from well over $100 per barrel in 2014 to less than $30 from the beginning of 2016. Based on oil prices that had been rising for more than a decade prior to 2015, energy companies made massive investments in drilling and exploration.