Silicon Valley, London and Beijing come to mind in response to the phrase tech hub, but around the world, promising and trailblazing tech hubs are springing up in a number of locales, especially in Asia and Africa. This article examines three emerging, highly competitive tech hotspots—Singapore, Bengaluru and Kenya—that are drawing start-ups and talent and giving the leading tech mega-centres a run for the money, including venture-capital investment.
Today, cloud computing is not only critical to the future success of the European financial sector. It also sits at the heart of the continent’s COVID-19 economic recovery plan. However, due to concerns relating to regional independence and operational resilience, the European Commission (EC) is wary of financial institutions central to Europe’s success becoming too dependent on individual cloud providers.
Make no mistake about it: Open banking will transform how the financial industry operates. The movement has yet to realize its potential, but the shift toward rich, data-led customer experiences is just around the corner.
Open Banking, which allows third parties to build applications around the activities of established banks, is curtailing the way banks have always functioned. The tried-and-true vertical-integration model, through which a bank maintains a firm grip on all of its operations, is being replaced by a more cooperative approach. How will innovative banks fulfill their roles as suppliers, producers and retailers of financial products and services in the Open Banking era?
As the landscape of financial services continues to change, it’s critical to stay ahead of the game. ATMs were groundbreaking achievements once upon a time, while more recently, mobile baking was the logical next step in banking’s maturation.
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.