Category: Fintech

Moving from finance to fintech : What you need to know

We are living in the 21st century where things change like seasons! The financial sector has evolved rapidly over a decade (thanks to technology) software, as well as cloud-based technology, revolutionize the way the industry operates. 

Before moving ahead let us know what Fintech really is 

Basically financial technology, aka “Fintech”, is a unique combination aiming for the traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services.

It is one of the emerging industries that promotes technology to improve activities in finance specifically. The use of smartphones for mobile banking, investing service & even for the cryptocurrency are a few examples of such technologies.

Wondering how can you shift without much effort?

Here are the few steps which you must keep in your mind:

Recognize your transferable skills

Just like any other job in the market which demands certain skills that are also transferable across multiple disciplines, moving from finance to Fintech is also similar. 

The 1st step in order to do that is to look at the skills you developed in a couple of years which are needed by Fintech firms.

 Although it might be true that coding, data analysis is like the bread & butter of Fintech, nonetheless there is still a need for more traditional skills in order to survive in this industry.

Understand thy expectations

Now since you know the skills which you can actually offer, it is crucial to analyze landscapes to see what practical prospects with them really are. 

For example, choosing between a role where you can work on a particular task all day long or working on more generalist role for business are 2 different things.

Having the skills for former won’t have any kind of shortage of jobs, except for the fact that you might be competing against some of the top programmers out there. 

On the other hand, opting for latter & also getting involved with a Fintech start-up is a great way to bring fresh insight into the business.

Know how to sell yourself

Once you get a good understanding of what your goals are & also what you can provide, you can combine them accordingly. 

Plenty of the Fintech companies would jump at the opportunity to hire a financial professional with loads of experience & qualifications, irrespective of their technical knowledge. 

Network and retrain

Whenever it comes to switching jobs or industries getting help from others is always favorable. You must have got a large network of colleagues, clients, industry friends that you’ve built up over the years, use them. Look for folks who have made a similar switch and succeeded. In case Fintech hasn’t affected your career already, it soon will. 

CONCLUSION 

Moving to a new place is a tough task and requires lots of guts for it. But when you know what your destiny is and how you are going to reach there, nothing seems to feel like a hindrance.

Top 3 Companies Using Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology is a brainchild of a person (or group of people) named Satoshi Nakamoto. The technology was introduced to the world in 2009. In just ten years, the technology has shown massive potential for revolutionizing the global business scenario. From our daily lives to governmental operations, blockchain technology has transformed every niche and sector. 

What makes Blockchain Technology so special?

Blockchain technology is emerging as a solution for a number of modern day problems. This is because of the special features that come with this technology. Some of its core features include complete transparency and its property of being immutable. With these qualities in hand, blockchain becomes a hero for the business world. 

However, blockchain technology has also revolutionized other industries like healthcare and law. Today there are more than 80 companies using blockchain. These corporations have gained a faster pace by using blockchain solution. Moreover, the World Economic Forum predicts that blockchain platforms will reserve almost 10% of global GDP within the upcoming decade.

How is the blockchain utilization measured for a company? 

From small businesses to large corporations like IBM come under companies using blockchain. To help calculate how progressively a company is using blockchain solution, Reality Shares came up with a proprietary Blockchain Score. It uses seven quality factors which represent the most important metrics for identification of company’s blockchain potential. The higher this Blockchain Score goes, the higher a company’s blockchain potential. 

Here are the top 3 companies using blockchain solution: 

IBM: Blockchain Score, 92

The leader of this race is IBM with highest blockchain score of 92. In an overall view, IBM comes out as one of the leaders in blockchain technology development. The corporation has been a technological pioneer since the year 1911 and has continuously developed and improved the technical sector. IBM uses blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) in various aspects. At the present time, the Blockchain solutions of IBM are powered by a team of almost 1500 experts.

Alibaba Group: Blockchain Score, 77

Standing on the second position of this race is the Alibaba Group which has a Blockchain Score of 77. The firm is well recognized as the largest Chinese e-commerce and technology organization. In total, Alibaba has set the path of blockchain ablaze with 90 patents by September 2018. Alibaba Group comes up as one of the leading companies using blockchain solutions. As proof, its subsidiary, Lynx International has implemented blockchain in its logistics department in a successful manner.

Fujitsu: Blockchain Score, 74

With the Blockchain Score of 74, our number three is Fujitsu. It is a Japanese technology firm which is the 7th largest IT service provider. Recently the company inaugurated a special Blockchain Innovation Center in Brussels, Belgium. 

These are just top 3 companies using blockchain solution. The list goes long and is growing day by day. Companies like MasterCard and ING Groep are also pacing fast in the race. These companies are not only accepting the revolutionizing Blockchain Technology but are also fueling its development and advancement. 

The Second Wave vs The First Wave of Fintech

Fintech as a term described in Wikipedia is as follows, “FinTech is the new applications, processes, products, or business models in the financial services industry, composed of one or more complementary financial services and provided as an end-to-end process via the Internet.”

Financial technology is an industry in itself, offering disruptive alternatives for the delivery of financial services. Over the past years, fintech has been a magnet for investment, and it has changed the way that people and institutions transact and interact with each other. It has provided people with a valid and reliable exchange platform.

The first wave focused on fintech startups, providing new ways of doing existing things more efficiently that aimed to supplement large financial institutions. Initially, the first wave focused on Business-to-Consumer (B2C) interactions in the banking sector, in the areas of payments, banking, lending, and securities. Fintech is aimed to reshape the banking industry. Disruptive entrepreneurs use software to create radical new services so as to lure customers away from the traditional banks. The goal was to reinvent finance.

Whereas the next wave of fintech is going to bring greater collaboration and partnership between technological and institutional companies. It is going to extend its impact into other areas of the fintech industry, such as alternative investments, that did not receive much attention in the first wave.

Why do fintech companies want to collaborate with the companies that they were supposed to destroy? There are various reasons for why collaborating is a huge trend in the fintech industry. Firstly, the partnership model gives fintech companies instant access to customers and secondly, it provides them with the capital and expertise of banks.

Fidor Bank is one such bank, involved in the partnership movement. It was launched in 2009 as an online-only retail bank, offering radical options such as bitcoin banking, whereas today Fidor has almost 30 partnerships with fintech companies.

“The reason we are in the second wave is that people realized that you are not going to own the whole value chain”

– Jennifer Hansen, Saxo Bank

Small Businesses are the Next Focus of Fintech Wave

The war for fintech dominance in the consumer market is still going on, but a new battle line is emerging as they set their sights on small businesses. As of now, the fintech startups are focusing more on the consumer market, changing the way people bank, borrow, invest and pay for purchases, but they are also eyeing the small business markets.

The next wave is focused on helping small businesses manage their cash flow. It is a huge opportunity for the fintech, since many big banks are reticent to lend money to these small and risky enterprises. That presents fintech as an opportunity to fill an unmet list of needs and do it at a lower cost of customer acquisition.

In comparison to the first wave of fintech, the next wave promises to be more cooperative and collaborative, rather than disruptive of traditional ways, and more broad-reaching. As a result, it will be even more impactful and transformative than the first, and use of innovation and technology are already beginning to bear fruit.

Digital Coins and Blockchain Technology in India

People in India seem to be drawn towards cryptocurrencies, even though the government tried to curb the growth of the digital currency market. The year 2017 has particularly been crucial for the growth of digital currencies because of the increase in the price of Bitcoin; the leading cryptocurrency in the world.

On November 8, 2016, the Prime Minister of India announced a demonetization policy. It was declared that the move was made to stop the circulation of black money and to reduce the level of inflation in the country’s economy. Demonetization sent shockwaves all across the country. People with large amounts of money needed a new way of holding wealth without having to pay taxes.

The usual level of prices of cryptocurrencies in India is on the high side. Market rates are higher than 5-10% if compared globally. Absence of large scale mining facilities is listed as a reason for higher prices in markets as liquidity is affected by lack of supply.

RBI warned people not to buy cryptocurrencies and issued two warnings in 2017. DAFBI, the largest crypto organization back in 2017, asked for legalization of the digital currencies. The organization could gather only 15,000 signatures, in a country with a population of nearly 1.2 billion.

  • In March 2017, ASSOCHAM, a leading association held a global summit on Bitcoin and blockchain technology where Bitcoin was described as the “revolution in the field of supply chain finance”.
  • Later in May, the demand of bitcoin suddenly increased so much that the exchanges had to restrict the purchases due to lack of supply.
  • June saw ZebPay becoming the 7th most popular app in the finance sector on India’s Apple app store.
  • Towards October, major Exchanges reported 20000 new users every month.
  • 2017 also gave rise to two new exchanges – BitIndia and Coinome

Blockchain technology has also been gaining popularity.

  • In February, State Bank of India took an initiative called “Bankchain”. Using blockchain technology Bankchain could share data with all the banks of India.  
  • Also, in May 2017, Bankchain introduced services to share KYC data across banks. Later the bank launched a blockchain-based KYC system for verification purposes. Other major Banks of India like ICICI, Axis Bank & Yes Bank also started the use of blockchain technology.
  • 2017 ended with the launch of a Blockchain Foundation of India and major cryptocurrency players like CoinSecure, Bitxoxo shaking hands with industry leaders like Microsoft, Nokia and Government of India.  

To summarize, there was a good response to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in India, even though the Government constantly issued warnings. The Government has not banned the digital currencies permanently but has scheduled a hearing on Sept 11, 2018 which will probably decide the fate of cryptocurrencies in India. As of now, cryptocurrencies are neither legal nor illegal in India.

Panaesha Capital is a Singapore-based Fintech company with branches in 7 countries; one of them being India. Panaesha Capital provides tools and services aimed at the booming industry of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. The Indian government was quick to accept blockchain technology, but wary of cryptocurrencies. Hopefully, the hearing on September 11th will change the game.

How can criminals manipulate the digital market?

“Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.” – Melvin Kranzberg

Technology, specifically blockchain technology has changed a lot about how we operate. The main asset of blockchain technology is how secure and private it is. Cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology in order to make sure their transactions are safe and private. Yet, the U.S Department of Justice had launched a probe into the manipulation of bitcoin prices. How is that kind of action even possible?

“For every lock, there is someone out there trying to pick it or break in.” – David Bernstein

If you dig in into the details of blockchain platforms and cryptocurrencies, you will find that blockchain systems have some enduring security features. For example, if I sent you some amount of bitcoin, and this transaction gets recorded on the blockchain network, there is no way of getting my money back. The system is structured in a way that does not allow transactions to be reversed.

But that holds true only when the transactions happen within the system. There are other aspects of cryptocurrency technologies that make extortion possible.

Trading bitcoins as stocks

The Justice Department launched the probe into bitcoin prices because cryptocurrencies are not yet treated as a viable mode of payment, like Dollars or Euros. Instead, the Department treats bitcoins as assets, like stocks and bonds. “Spoofing” is a type of con that investigators are looking into. Spoofing is when people place orders, but cancel them before the deal is verified – often without paying a service fee. This creates the impression that the bitcoin is worth more than it actually is.  

This sort of manipulation is possible with almost every other asset. Bitcoin is more prone to it because many people hold large amounts of the coin. About 1,000 accounts carry 40% of all the bitcoins in existence, which leaves just 20% bitcoins in the other accounts.

Several people who are cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and own large amounts of bitcoin have been in the community for so long that they are familiar with each other. They can take combined efforts to make the prices increase or decrease- and because there is no regulation in the digital market, it might not even be out of the law for them to do so.

Exploiting Invisibility

Sometimes a user sets up a deal which appears like an appropriate purchase, but in reality makes the deal with himself or herself. These deals make it seem like there is a lot of activity going on in the market than there actually is, thus unnaturally increasing demand and value.  This process is referred to as “Wash Trading”.

A user can have multiple accounts set up and the blockchain systems tend to keep their users anonymous. The transactions that take place are stored on a blockchain network and are completely visible but the accounts linked to them are only recognised with bitcoin addresses. These addresses are usually alphanumeric codes.

This anonymity raises a challenge and makes it very hard to prove that wash trading is actually happening. The law cannot identify criminals or fraudsters due to the anonymity. At a congressional hearing, a former federal prosecutor even mentioned “Mickey Mouse” living at the “123 Main Street” as one of the account holders.

Enhancing Oversight

Countries have started to regulate the cryptocurrencies either with existing regulations or with new ones. In 2015, an investigation revealed that Ripple Labs had not obeyed anti money laundering laws and rules about getting accurate customer identification information.

In May 2018, 40 jurisdictions involving U.S states and the Canadian provinces announced a probe “Operation Cryptosweep” to shut down frauds in the market. This probe paved the way for over 70 investigations and cautioned about 35 companies about disobeying security rules and regulations.

Maximum amount of trading takes place in countries where regulations are poor and the law enforcement is low. From early 2014 to 2017, China became the target of global bitcoin trading. Almost 90% of the overall bitcoin trading took place in China, where some users artificially inflated trading volumes. After this episode China has banned all online cryptocurrency trading, but hackers are finding alternatives.

The complication will most probably shift to other countries where rigid rules are absent, highlighting the need of international cooperation in investigations. Cryptocurrencies are very powerful and are a global phenomenon. So the world’s nations will have to work together in order to protect their customers.

Fintech & Fintech Organizations

“Technology is anything that wasn’t around when you were born” – Alan Kay

Financial Technology or Fintech is an industry that evolved for the spontaneity of financial activities with the help of the most powerful tool we have i.e. technology. The technology can be used for new software applications as well as processes and business models. In a short span of time the companies that use this technology have characterized the direction, outline and pace of change across almost every financial sector.

Fintech is a very vast field. With everything made so easy by just a click on an app, people have started to think about ways to even pay for their morning French toasts without having to swipe a card or use actual currency notes. Upon exploring the timeline of the fintech developments, the past years have showed newness and a chain of innovations.

If we travel back a little in our minds we can recall that 1950’s gave the world credit cards solving the problem of carrying large amounts of cash around.

1960’s saw the greatest invention in the form of ATM machines saving the need to go to bank branches.

In 1970’s electronic stock trading began on exchange trading floors.

1980’s saw the rise of mainframe computers and a more secure way to save and record data.

In 1990’s the internet wave surprised the world and e commerce models evolved. This paved the way for online stock brokerage.

These past few decades have created a fintech groundwork which most people don’t think about, but use daily. In a span of 50 years it can also be noticed that fintech were creating more complex risk managements, trade processing, treasury management and data analysis tool at the institutional level for banks and financial firms. These systems might not be obvious to the banking customers; they do make up a multibillion industry pointing at fulfilling the needs of the financial services sector.

What can amaze you is that in these 65 years of development, as the fintech technology became familiar and was adapted by banks and their clients, the banking sector did not suffer at all. In fact banks grew. If you look at the U.S’s FDIC data from 1950 to 2014, the bank branches grew from 18,000 to 82,000!

Today in the early phase of the 21st century, the financial services are being continuously computerized through mobile wallets, payment apps and even a robot giving you advice for wealth and managing your retirement plans. The services can also offer crowd funding platforms for the customers to approach private and alternative investment shots. These services are not helping the banking services but rather are replacing the services completely. So you can think of the fintech industry as two major sections. One, consumer facing and the other is institutional. It is the former that is posing a threat by scoring customers competing with the banks.

At this point of time, our country has created an ecosystem that caters start ups with an opportunity to expand into big businesses The Indian fintech software market is expected to reach USD 2.4 billion in the next three years from the current state of USD 1.2 billion. In the recent years the Indian economy, which is particularly driven by cash has taken an advantage of the fintech opportunity. With a variety of options available kike e wallets, the range of services are immense and have changed the way that customers deal with their day to day transactions. Fintech in India is beneficial because we boast in inimitable youth demographic which is constantly growing. Additionally the Smartphone business has grown from 53% in 2014 to almost 64% in 2018. The financial services in India are introductory with almost 40%population having no relations with the banks and 80% of the transactions carried out through cash. This creates an opportunity for fintech to spread its wings.

“If banks don’t provide their customers with a more relevant, more insightful experience, then someone else will”. – George Ludvikkson

With the rapid growth in the fintech industry, several people have questioned whether banks will be a part of our future or not. I guess only time can answer this question.

Panaesha Capital is Pledged to Benefit Fintech

In an industry brimming with start-ups, why will Panaesha Capital stand out?

Panaesha Capital PVT. LTD. has a goal that any noteworthy company, start-up or legacy, can appertain. Panaesha Capital aims to be simple, secure, cost-effective, fast and stable.

The company is a fintech start-up built by experts in the field and is committed to blockchain technology. Panaesha Capital believes that blockchain technology is the future of financial services and is developing tools based on the technology.

The company offers products for the betterment of the fintech industry, developing blockchain platforms and other white-label solutions for businesses.

Feelium is a cryptocurrency by Panaesha Capital built on blockchain technology. Currently running a successful token pre-sale, Feelium is expected to grow to several times its token value. Feelium has many utility features that will highly recommend the token to a vast majority of users, thus increasing its trade-value.

White-label product solutions by Panaesha Capital will allow businesses to customize products for their own needs and accelerate their growth without having to go through the drawbacks of developing the products themselves. The process will reduce launch-time and will keep businesses from exhausting financial resources by building softwares from scratch.

Showing further commitment to fintech and blockchain technology, Panaesha Capital’s first product was an online media publication known as ‘Fintech Crypto News’. The website offers the public access to the latest news in fintech, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. Providing unbiased news relating to these industries, Fintech Crypto News will be a pioneer in online fintech and cryptocurrency media releases. The platform will also help other business by reviewing upcoming ICO’s and publish their status.

Panaesha Capital is launching a crypto-exchange in Q3 of 2018. PCEX will be a one-stop trading platform for both cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency to fiat money trading. With limit trading and a focus on data integrity, PCEX will be one of the best crypto-exchanges in the market. For extra security, PCEX employs a broker channel to help users navigate the platform and to decide on the best trade strategy.

Panaesha Capital provides advanced analytics to help forecast the market for your product. Aspiring or existing business owners can use Panaesha Capital’s resources to plan and grow their own business. The PR and marketing services will help businesses to pitch their product to the masses.

With a plethora of different products and services, Panaesha Capital aspires to serve the industry by optimizing current financial technology.