Finance

Trend setting Fintech Industry!

2020 being a consequential year for the fintech industries, has subsequently shown the dependence of the digital world a whole lot more than any previous year as the major part of the world got swept away from the pandemic from business to households and consumers to service providers making 2021 an year of crucial evolution of the flourishing fintech industries.

The firm Plaid’s survey, more than 2000 US citizens that had jointly conducted with the Harris Poll reported that 59 percent of Americans used the fintech applications for their money management and other financial transactions more than before COVID-19. Not just that according to 69 percent of the citizens, fintect acted as a ‘financial lifeline’ during the crisis and 73 percent believed the fintech to be the new normal.

The financial sector needs to up their game as there is not only an increased demand for the services and solutions of financial technology but also a need to accelerate the developments of new solutions in order to make this new normal a much more success in the coming years.

Despite the pandemic-related crisis fintech sectors in the North American and European markets should have a resilient result in the next year and both the geographical regions are to have significant operation head-wings as known by the Fitch ratings’ outlook.

Digital banking, Digital currencies, E commerce, contactless payments, Advances in AI are few of the features likely to be prominent during the current year.

With the people confined to their homes there was a plummeting demand to visit Brick-and-mortar establishments and the important advancements made in Artificial intelligence, biometrics, open banking, cyber security system, digital banking made it possible for them to access a and pay heed to a variety of financial needs and complete other important tasks with just a click on their smart devices. As there is an incline in digital banking there was a concurrent recline in paper based banking making the shift towards a paperless world as the customers became comfortable in communicating with their banks through mobile banking.

Crypto currency has seen resurgence of interest after having two years of sedate activity, Bitcoin breaking the all-time records in a fashion. Great proportion of institutional investors are holding Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies as their long term investments in the market. As such, investor interest in crypto currency space has grown in 2020 providing a platform for make successful decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. Novogratz predicts that the price of Bitcoin may reach $60,000 by the end of 2021. The legitimacy of crypto-currency will nothing but grow more in 2021 as its clearly being exhibited not only by institutions but also by some of the biggest monetary authorities.

Some countries are expected to be experiencing phenomenal growth in e-commerce over the coming years, digitization of retail services will explode. It is up to each country to ensure that they seize the opportunity the pandemic has brought to digitalize as the world moves in response to recovery.

From being an optional capability to becoming an essential payment service contactless digital payment has now evolved. This trend help companies like PayPal, Apple Pay and Square that offers contactless payments.

Coming to AI, it is most significant single technology class of all. Whether its chatbots addressing queries of the consumers, fraud preventions, authenticity verification of KYC documents, analytics for engineers analyzing large volumes of data, the fintechs will continue to use AI more than ever as its potential keeps growing significantly. Further evolving into cognitive process automation, AI systems will perform even more complex automaton processes.

Finance

Euro zone ministers expect inflation to slow in 2022

The acceleration of euro zone inflation, driven energy prices, is mostly temporary. Then the price growth will slow down again. The euro zone finance ministers agreed that, that too the next year as forecasted by the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

Paschal Donohoe, chaired the talks of the ministers in Luxembourg. In a news conference he said that there was also agreement that the inflation spike was not an argument against the transition to renewable sources of energy. This is under the EU’s ambitious plan of reducing CO2 emissions to zero by the year 2050.

Finance

Under new rules, borrowing for investment sensible

British finance minister Rishi Sunak said that the government borrowing to fund investment was a sensible thing. This is to allow under new fiscal rules that he is likely to announce, unlike borrowing for day-to-day spending. He said that borrowing for capital investment that is going to drive up their growth is probably a sensible thing for them. And that too particularly in an environment of slightly lower interest rate. Sunak stated this in an event on the sidelines of the annual conference of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party. This event was organized by the Taxpayers’ Alliance advocacy group. Sunak stated in that event, that borrowing for more day-to-day spending is probably less something that you would want to have as part of your framework.

Finance

IMF board to interview Georgieva-sources

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board is going to interview Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. This is regarding that; its reviews claims that she pressured World Bank staff to alter data to favor China in her previous role. Board members were initially expected to meet with Georgieva. But spent their time working on other regular business matters.

The board members spent hours for questioning lawyers from the WilmerHale firm. This is about their World Bank investigation report which alleged that Georgieva, as the bank‘s CEO applied undue pressure on staff, to alter data in the flagship “Doing Business” report to benefit China. Then, an IMF spokesperson said that the IMF board remains committed to a thorough, objective, and timely review of the matter. Georgieva has strongly denied the accusations.

The upcoming interviews could prove pivotal in either increasing support for Georgieva. This is with many IMF shareholders are keen to wrap up the board’s deliberations on the matter. The fund’s most influential member governments, including the top shareholder the United States, have withheld public judgment. The World Bank tasked WilmerHale with investigating the “Doing Business” data irregularities identified in 2020. The law firm’s report contends Georgieva. The former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim’s office pressured staff to manipulate data so that the China’s global ranking in the “Doing Business 2018” study of investment climates rose to 78th from 85th.