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.
Many bankers love blockchain for its potential to maximize efficiency and productivity while slashing costs and security risks. But the crypto-currencies, such as the (in)famous bitcoin, tied to it? Not so much—at least not across the board. While giving the thumbs up to distributed ledger technology for its advantages in areas such as trade finance, industry leaders are maintaining a wary eye on cryptos, due to disadvantages such as volatility.
Rarely has a technology been met with the excitement and trepidation that AI has. Because artificial intelligence not only matches but can surpass human intelligence, it is exciting as a means to improve speed, save cost and maximize accuracy—but menacing for its potential to displace human workers. Banks are embracing AI for its staggering benefits, while also acknowledging that it creates a few wrinkles that need ironing out.
In March, the US Senate reformed the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act by loosening its tight regulations on smaller financial organizations, welcome relief for those firms that have been struggling for eight long years with requirements targeted for larger, systemically important institutions during the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Most are upbeat about the Senate bill, but how will it fare in the House of Representatives?
As April turned to May, the ongoing economic expansion being experienced by the United States officially became the country’s second longest on record. The period, which began in June 2009 when the world’s biggest economy began to emerge from the Great Recession
In 2017 Russia enjoyed a refreshing return to economic growth and general optimism—until November, when a GDP contraction took analysts by surprise. The question is, was the setback a minor bump in the road on the nation’s path to sustained recovery, or was it a signal that Russia has fallen back into recession after a good but temporary run?
Banking across the globe has been going through a major transformation over the last few years, and this evolution looks set to continue well into 2018, and indeed beyond.
Let’s start with the basics, The Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) was officially published by the European Commission in December 2015 and follows on from the First Payment Services Directive (PSD1), which was implemented in 2009.
Millions of people work, shop and play online every day, leaving behind volumes of data that can include sensitive information. A study by IDC estimates that by 2020 there will be 5,200GB of data for every consumer on earth. In total, that works out at 40 zettabytes, or 57 times more than every grain of sand on every beach.
At the end of July, JPMorgan Chase revealed its plans to facilitate $200 billion in clean-energy financing through 2025. The announcement follows on from similar promises made back in 2015