WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

Bitcoin-like money may emerge in countries where cash is in decline or financial networks need updating.

Cognitive technologies are transforming capital markets. Once the preserve of IT experts, they are now moving to center stage—offering enhanced speed, accuracy, and efficiency, and creating 20 to 30 percent in additional capacity, as employees in areas such as post-trade processing are freed from automatable tasks to focus on higher-value activities. The challenge for market participants, facing an array of solutions, is to implement at scale and capture the maximum value at the lowest possible risk.

Since 2009, Bank of America (BofA) has closed 1,597 branches in 253 counties across the US, selling the spaces to local banks in some areas and directing customers to further branches in others, according to The Wall Street Journal. For context, that's equivalent to 26% of the branches that the bank currently operates, and represents a big cut that's reflective of a rising industry trend.

McKinsey’s summary of leading FinTech articles is a fantastic summary of the issues facing global financial services players.  There are several sections in this 80-pager that we believe our clients will find the most value….

• Cutting through the noise (page 6) – this is a noisy space with many old and new entrants laying claim to a place in FinTech land.  This section of the report truly cuts through the noise and presents a very clear view of the primary value drivers for F/S players and love the “6 Digital Imperatives” chart on page 12. 
• Helping Incumbents not Disrupting (page 24) – the notion of cooperation vs. competition between FinTechs and Incumbents has emerged as a more realistic future for the industry.  Canada has a unique F/S model with large, dominant and highly successful incumbents controlling the vast majority of clients and assets.  We see cooperation as being the only role that we will play as a FinTech provider and this seems to be an increasingly popular position in our industry.
• Banking on the Cloud (page 49) – the movement from resistance to acceptance and now to adoption of cloud apps is accelerating.  In our business, revenues generated from Cloud services have increased from 10% to 50% in just 3 years and the discussions that we have had with clients around “resistance” to the Cloud have virtually disappeared.  Innovation at a higher pace and lower cost is becoming table stakes and embracing this technology is now an afterthought.

The robots are coming for Wall Street's jobs, and McKinsey & Co has an idea of exactly what jobs they are coming for.

• Automated technologies could have a big impact on 60% of Wall Street jobs, according to a new report by McKinsey, the consulting firm.
• Integration of new technology doesn't guarantee big revenue spikes, but it is necessary to keep firms afloat in the digital age. Some big firms are already taking action.

HighRadius' solution uses AI, machine learning, and optical character recognition to identify a payer, match them to an uncontextualized payment, and match that to an open receivable. Moreover, it gives companies the option of sending an automatic prompt to customers whose debts are outstanding. By leveraging this solution, BAML aims to reduce costs for its large business clients.

Fintechs have matured rapidly in recent years, and the industry is entering a new phase of development. With no signs of the industry’s growth abating, its reach is likely to broaden quickly to embrace even newer technologies and offerings, blurring the boundaries now delineating financial services. As the momentum continues, some aspects of fintech are likely to reach into a broad swath of the global economy, much like how digital technologies have become a necessity, rather than an option, for every industry. Understanding the seven features that characterize this new era will allow companies to stake out the most valuable plots in the new landscape.

Here's a collection of all 71 CB Insights market maps and unbundling/disrupting graphics.

ARK Invest aims to identify large-scale investment opportunities resulting from technological change. We believe innovation is key to growth. From a broad spectrum of disruptive innovations, Big Ideas represents our annual breakout of technologies that we believe will accelerate significantly in the months ahead.

The most anticipated slide deck of the year is here. Key takeaways:

• Global smartphone growth is slowing: Smartphone shipments grew 3 percent year over year last year, versus 10 percent the year before. This is in addition to continued slowing internet growth, which Meeker discussed last year.
• Voice is beginning to replace typing in online queries. Twenty percent of mobile queries were made via voice in 2016, while accuracy is now about 95 percent.
• In 10 years, Netflix went from 0 to more than 30 percent of home entertainment revenue in the U.S. This is happening while TV viewership continues to decline.
• Entrepreneurs are often fans of gaming, Meeker said, quoting Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman and Mark Zuckerberg. Global interactive gaming is becoming mainstream, with 2.6 billion gamers in 2017 versus 100 million in 1995. Global gaming revenue is estimated to be around $100 billion in 2016, and China is now the top market for interactive gaming.
• China remains a fascinating market, with huge growth in mobile services and payments and services like on-demand bike sharing. (More here: The highlights of Meeker's China slides.)
• While internet growth is slowing globally, that’s not the case in India, the fastest growing large economy. The number of internet users in India grew more than 28 percent in 2016. That’s only 27 percent online penetration, which means there’s lots of room for internet usership to grow. Mobile internet usage is growing as the cost of bandwidth declines. (More here: The highlights of Meeker's India slides.)
• In the U.S. in 2016, 60 percent of the most highly valued tech companies were founded by first- or second-generation Americans and are responsible for 1.5 million employees. Those companies include tech titans Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook.
• Healthcare: Wearables are gaining adoption with about 25 percent of Americans owning one, up 12 percent from 2016. Leading tech brands are well-positioned in the digital health market, with 60 percent of consumers willing to share their health data with the likes of Google in 2016.

Some tough news: Buffer has made 10 layoffs, 11% of the team. We want to share openly how we got here, the financial details and how we’re moving forward.

HTM for Stocks monitors financial and social data (specifically stock price, stock volume and Twitter volume) for a couple hundred stocks and alerts you in real-time when a significant anomaly is occurring.

$72 million-worth stolen, Bitcoin price plummets, individual customer accounts hacked despite multisignature protection

Starbucks customers in the U.S. and Canada are splashing less cash at the coffee chain than ever before. That doesn't mean that they are buying fewer beverages and snacks. Rather, they are embracing the company's loyalty card (which can be loaded with money) and app. The company has 12 million loyalty members in the U.S. alone and that means that Starbucks boasts a serious amount of cash on its customer cards. Wall Street Journal data featured in Market Watch shows that Starbucks has more customer cash than many banks have in deposits.

Before long, splashing the cash at your local Starbucks might become a thing of the past. 41 percent of the coffee chain’s customers in the U.S. and Canada now pay for their beverages and snacks after loading money onto their Starbuck’s card. With 12 million loyalty members in the U.S. alone, the coffee chain boasts more customer money on its cards than many banks have in deposits.

According to Wall Street Journal data featured in Market Watch, Starbuck’s customers in the U.S. have loaded at least $1.2 billion onto the company’s cards and app. That’s higher than the deposits held by Customers Bank ($780m) and the Green Dot Corporation ($560m). Starbucks still has a long way to go to catch Paypal which boasts a whopping $13 billion on its customer accounts across the world.

IBM has created a 'consensus algorithm' to help with decision-making, as well as smart contracts templates that can be coded in Java or Gola.

But my brand spanking new chip card from a UK issuer not only arrived with a 2000s app of a 1990s implementation of a 1980s product (debit) on 1970s chip, it also came with a 1960s magnetic stripe on it and a 1950s PAN with a 1940s signature panel on the back. It’s no wonder it seems a little out of place in the modern world. 

Bitcoin continues to be a controversial digital currency. But the financial world is buzzing about new applications for the blockchain, the underlying technology that makes Bitcoin possible. Here's how it works.