The Best Reads On FinTech From Last Week  

Why Fintech Is Different in Asia

Asia’s market dynamics and diverse population create a different set of opportunities and challenges than those faced by U.S. fintech entrepreneurs.  Here are four factors that make Asia’s fintech landscape different:

1.   Geographic Fragmentation. Asia has more than 20 countries, each with their own economies, currencies and regulatory bodies

2.   Growing Consumer Class. An Asian growing middle class population is consuming more. Alibaba, Flipkart, Tencent, Lazada and Snapdeal are some of the largest e-commerce players in Asia. E-commerce is still in its infancy in Asia and will have high growth as more underbanked individuals join the financial system

3.   Unbanked Populations. 2 billion people around the world are unbanked.  Slightly over 50% of them are in Asia, particularly India. The Aadhaar program is the largest biometric database in the world and may prove to be a game changing project for fintech and financial inclusion.

4.   Mobile Penetration.  Asia leapfrogged the landline era and went straight to wireless and mobile. The result has been mobile phone penetration rates of 80% in India to as high as 99% in Indonesia. Payment apps and digital wallets are flying high in the fintech landscape as smartphone penetration increases.

JP Morgan Chase to Hire 1,800 for Fintech Jobs

After setting up camp on the old grounds of Wilmington’s AstraZeneca complex, JPMorgan Chase is continuing to expand its fintech department and plans to hire more than 1,400 Delawareans.

The company is also investing $200 million for office expansion and training. The company’s strategy is to increase online and mobile app expertise

According to Garrett Baldwin of Modern Trader, based on 150 interviews with the top banking executives, the Top 10 trends in 2016 that will capture the attention of the market are:

1. Increased Sophistication and Collaboration in Technology

2. Rise of Artificial intelligence, virtual reality and robo-advising

3. The Continued Rise of Big Data

4. Rise of Alternate Products and the Sharing Economy

5. Increased Automation

6. Fintech IPOs

With some shakeouts and less than stellar IPOs in 2015 - we could see some shake outs.

7. Security Management

Continued Breaches and attacks have necessitated the urgent need for enhanced security measures and new tools and technologies. There has been spate of developments already in this space.

“With all the recent data breaches, security within financial services is one of the most talked about trends recently. It’s one of the things that has the power to affect us the most. With mobile banking and payment technologies growing at record-breaking speeds, security management is growing at equivalent paces to keep up with these innovative products that need security technology to perform the way they should.”

8. Regulatory Interest

9. Block Chain Interest and Developments

Block chain is now more than a fad as global banks are working towards a unified solution for inter-bank transactions. The central banks have also taken active interest.

10. Mobile Expansion and Connectivity

Additional Trends of Note are the Following

The growth enterprise IoT initiatives will increase the demand for cyber insurance policies in 2016. Traditionally Cyber Security concerns have primarily revolved around the threat of stolen data, such as credit card numbers, bank account information, user id and passwords, etc.

- The growth of IoT devices has added another layer of security issues.

- The Insurance Industry will embrace healthcare and connected home to IoT devices as a way to price insurance policies.

- We are witnessing Apple, Google, and Samsung build out commerce experiences around their payment products.

- From Dongles to NFCs to Mobile Applications - we will now see more business management applications built around the POS devices in the SME space.

- The Beacon technology and IoT devices will go main stream with payment applications and services

The P2P Lending industry will hit head winds and be under the regulatory scrutiny with mounting credit losses.