THEFINTECHVIEW

ISSUE #27 | 2023

40

Beating the digital drum

African fintechs are ‘doing it for themselves’. We asked three leading members of its fintech ecosystem –Matthew Barnard, Gwera Kiwana and Matteo Rizzi – what that means for them… and the rest of the world

64 Game-on!

Elaine Dowman explains why Barclays is banking on the UK’s video game industry

Open Finance

6

Unlocking the new economy

With their customers facing, not one but two, existential threats, banks need to seize the open banking moment and drive real change in 2023, says Tink’s Tasha Chouhan

11 A slice of the action

As European regulators begin shaping a new era of API-driven open finance, Italy’s CBI is already positioning itself and its clients to reap the benefits. Head of Banking and Financial Market, Alessio Castelli, outlines the menu of options

Payments

14 Short cuts, fast growth

The Visa B2B Connect network for high-value business payments is making good on its promise to shake up correspondent banking, says Ben Ellis, SVP and Global Head of Visa B2B Connect at Visa Business Solutions

It was John F. Kennedy who pointed out that, when written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters – one that represents danger, and the other opportunity.

Logically, then – since we are now in an era of permanent crisis, according to lexicogaphers at Collins, who made permacrisis their fave word at the end of 2022 – we are also in an era of heightened opportunity.

That’s not the impression one gets from the drip, drip of depressing headlines, announcing another staff layoff, down-valuation or VCs snapping the wallet shut (with perhaps the noble exception of fintech champion Sequoia Capital, which poured money into 100 of them last year). In uncharacteristically downbeat mood, finfluencer Leda Glyptis even describes the outlook for H1 2023 as ‘grim’ on page 74.

The macroeconomic environment affecting FSPs – and both their retail and business customers – combined with an even more active regulatory one (check out the FSCom discussion on page 44), is making life more difficult than usual. No one in this issue is pretending otherwise.

The danger is that the cautious will stop investing in innovation at just the moment when they must hold their nerve – or lose out to more opportunistic businesses… At least, that’s the situation in the Global North. There, many now mature fintechs grew up in a time of plenty, have no experience of recession and are having to come to terms with leaner models and nervous investors.

Look across the world to Africa (page 40), though, and you’ll find a different and much more positive outlook. They’re no longer looking to the Global North for inspiration nor investment – and are even exporting solutions that can teach the rest of the world a thing or two about delivering what customers really want with minimum resources.

The good news is that Leda cheers up in H2 2023. So, if you’re reading this at Finnovate Europe on March 15, look on this Ides of March not as a day doom, but as a signpost to impending opportunity. Our last issue’s spine tingler, “Perhaps we make too much of what is wrong and too little of what is right”, was a quote from HRH

Queen

Elizabeth II Sue Scott, Editor

19 No time like the real-time

The US payments landscape is being driven by a unique set of circumstances that will have deep and lasting impact on how business gets done. Volante’s Rachel Hunt says banks must move fast – in more ways than one

22 A token of our esteem

Are we falling out of love with cards?

If anything, our relationship is proving remarkably resilient, agree Alex Page from FIS Worldpay, G+D’s Alex Gatiragas and Kurt Schmid from Netcetera. Here, they discuss how tokenisation, click-to-pay and secure customer authentication are all helping to keep the spark alive

26 Mission critical

Payments provider Vitesse is helping a new wave of parametric insurers deliver funds where they’re needed, when they’re needed

30 Getting closer

Terrie Smith, Co-founder and Global Ambassador at wearable tech pioneer DIGISEQ, on why issuers should open their eyes to a new dawn in wearable payments

Partnerships

36 Piloting bigger banks to safety

Kunal Galav from Mambu, and McKinsey analyst Henning Soller discuss how incumbents mired in complexity can compete in shifting seas

SECURITY & COMPLIANCE

44 Prepare for scrutiny fscom’s recent Regulatory Outlook 2023 event covered a wide variety of issues impacting financial services companies in the UK and the FCA’s evolving approach

49 Ground zero ATMs and assisted self-service machines are vulnerable assets, says Juan Ramon Aramendia, Head of Cybersecurity Product Engineering at Auriga. But there is a solution

HOW TO BUILD A BANK

52 Winning the hearts, minds and finances of SMEs

Mambu and friends look at the state of banking for the majority of the world’s businesses and finds them hungry for better support

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

58 Where were you fintech?

Stuart Thompson roams the aisles of the world’s biggest consumer electronics show in search of an industry that really should be taking notice

61 Truth, accuracy and AI

HSBC’s Ash Booth on the possibilities and perils in a new generation of generative artificial intelligence

ALTERNATIVE ASSETS

67 Alternative realities Ron Delnevo asks if central bank digital currencies are less about fending oºff competition from cryptos and more about advancing a political – and cashless – agenda

70 The knowledge exchange

In a tumultuous year for the crypto industry, Bitstamp set out to restore faith by tackling the biggest obstacle to adoption… ignorance

LAST WORDS

74 How will 2023 unfold?

Predictions from Ram Gopal, Leda Glyptis, Brett King, Tom Eggleston and Igor Tomych