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Expert opinions

Hirander Misra

Hirander Misra Chairman and CEO at GMEX Group

Can Africa Play a Vital Role in the Future of Carbon Markets?

The global momentum behind carbon markets has created a unique opportunity for Africa to lead on sustainable development while addressing the climate crisis. At a pivotal panel discussion, held during COP29 in Azerbaijan, hosted by SECDEX Group, alongside ZERO13 and Seychelles’ Ministry of Agriculture, Climate Change, and Environment, leading expe...

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Katherine Chan

Katherine Chan CEO at Juice

From Ignored to Empowered: Fintech’s Answer to SME Challenges

After spending over 15 years in banking, I witnessed the ongoing challenges SMEs face when seeking funding. Traditional high street banks often fail to meet the needs of these businesses, especially digital-first and B2C companies, leaving them unable to secure the capital needed to scale. This persistent gap in funding, which amounts to £22b in t...

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Janine Grainger

Janine Grainger CEO at Easy Crypto

Bitcoin: What’s Trump got to do with it?

Decrypt’s 2024 story of the year was ‘How crypto money changes American politics’ and it’s all about how crypto executives “revolutionised how corporations spend on elections”. Now, Ripple is gifting Donald Trump’s inaugural fund (which pays for his official swearing-in ceremony and lavish parties to follow) $5 million worth of XRP; while Coinba

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Ritesh Jain

Ritesh Jain Founder at Infynit / Former COO HSBC

FinTech Disruption: Commonwealth Nations Are Shaping the Future of Finance

A silent revolution is brewing across the Commonwealth. It isn't coming from Wall Street or London’s financial district—it’s rising from Nairobi’s street vendors, Lagos’ bustling tech hubs, and the remote islands of The Bahamas. These nations are rewriting the rulebook on finance, not by tweaking old systems but by daring to build new ones from th...

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Nikunj Gundaniya

Nikunj Gundaniya Product manager at Digipay.guru

Top 7 benefits of branchless banking for banks

Branchless banking is reshaping how banks connect with customers. These solutions give you an opportunity to provide banking services without branches and thus decrease your expenses as you target more customers. The outcome of such a transformational approach is the ability of your financial institution to remain relevant within this competitive ...

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Research

Future of Report

The Future of Embedded Finance in Africa 2025

Embedded finance is changing the payment landscape in Africa. The question now is: what will it take for embedded finance to truly scale across Africa? The global embedded finance market is set to grow beyond $228 billion by 2028 according to Juniper Research. As this market matures and consumer confidence in the technology grows, this will likely prove to be a significant chunk of global financial services. In Africa, this emerging trend has the potential to unlock new economic opportunities. As a less mature market, it is not as hindered by legacy payments systems, making it ripe for payment innovation from embedded finance. It has the potential to reshape the continent’s current payments landscape, broaden innovation opportunities, and drive financial inclusion. As a market Africa is very adaptable to different technologies, and embracing of newer, more agile services. A lot of the population to the majority of their banking through their mobile phones, making embedded finance fit seamlessly into financial worlds of the populace. Yet there are many factors which will alter and develop the ability for embedded finance to take hold. This Finextra report, sponsored by Kora, received contributions from Binance, Indelible Inc., Mojaloop Foundation, and Nikulipe. It explores:  Making embedded cross-border payments work in Africa; Unlocking the opportunities of embedded e-commerce in the African market; Embedded finance: Encouraging African financial inclusion; Why personalisation in embedded finance is the next step for African fintech; Regulating Africa to encourage embedded finance innovation.

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Future of Report

The Future of the Global Financial Ecosystem 2024

A Sibos Special Edition. Our world has experienced several unexpected and unprecedented events over the last few years, which show no signs of slowing down. This year’s Sibos aims to connect those in the financial services community who have experienced fragmentation, in the hope that tackling this will help with some of the biggest issues facing banking. The role that financial institutions play in the global environment will continue to be placed under the microscope as situations continue to develop. In light of this, there has never been a better time for those in finance to come together and have frank and open conversations about their future. This applies to not only environmental and social goals for banks, but also the adoption of and adaptation to new technologies. No longer can these issues be placed on the side and given lip service, they need to become an integrated part of each financial institution’s core policies and practices. However, ever increasing this challenge are the continuously changing global circumstances. Due to these circumstances, communication and collaboration are essential drivers for 2024. This Finextra report, produced in association with Swift, includes commentary from BBVA, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, ING, JP Morgan, Lloyds, McKinsey, NatWest, SEB, Standard Chartered, UniCredit, and Wells Fargo.

1058 downloads

Future of Report

The Future of Payments 2023

Gaining Ground on Global Interoperability. The European Central Bank defines interoperability as 'the set of arrangements/procedures that allows participants in different systems to conduct and settle payments or securities transactions across systems while continuing to operate only in their own respective systems.' While technological efficiency is critical to gaining ground on global interoperability, there are other elements that are crucial to the success of a global payments network. This includes the ability to build seamless connections, connect payment systems across different jurisdictions with varying regulatory requirements and ensure different demographic groups can transact reliably and securely. The payments and transaction banking industry may be unsure of where the fintech evolution will go next, but what is evident is that models for public and private sector collaboration must be established. What this means is that financial services must reach a resolution for the continued challenges around cross border payments, correspondent banking and liquidity management, if we are indeed on the cusp of the instant payments era. The European legislative landscape must also be looked upon as a support, not a hindrance and more must be done to implement the clever use of data so industry participants can forge ahead with initiatives such as open finance, banking as a service and turning payments processing into a business opportunity. Further to this, as technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) are utilised for innovation, banks and other financial institutions must step up their fraud prevention and cybersecurity games and establish new ways of customer authentication. Now is the time for commercial banks to lead and the emergence of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has proved that strategic potential is there for this sector to thrive and pave the way for the next generation of payments. With expert views from Banking Circle, Quant, and Wise, in this report, you will learn from industry leaders about the events and trends defining global payments in 2023 and beyond. The report includes insights from BNY Mellon, Cecabank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Nationwide Building Society, NatWest, SEBA Bank, and Société Générale.

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FinextraTV

How Finance Can be a Conduit for Environmental Health

Over the last 2 years, countries around the world have been working to improve the health of the world's biodiversity. The Kungming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) - made up of 23 Targets - framed the majority of the talk at the recent COP 16 conference, discussing how finance can phase out, reverse or reduce harm. Following the conference, FinextraTV caught up with Jessica Smith, Nature Lead at UNEP Finance Initiative, to discuss her reflections, as well as her optimisms and future predictions. Smith discusses innovative examples from the UK, Australia, EU and South Africa, as well as setting the understanding of who is responsible for a better future. A strong tracking system, mainstreaming of nature into infrastructure, agriculture and real estate all feature as high priorities

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Long reads

Sehrish Alikhan

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

Why aren’t older adults in the US equipped to handle financial shocks?

A study from the Aspen Institute revealed that 47% of older adults in the US are not prepared to handle financial shocks, such as medical expenses, emergencies, or a sudden loss of income. The study outlines how older individuals are relying on financial tools that take advantage of them by abusing penalties, interest rates, and fees, in order to ...

Níamh Curran

Níamh Curran

Anne Boden on supporting female fintech founders

For International Women’s Day (IWD) this year, we spoke to a woman who is the poster child of female success in the fintech world, Anne Boden. In June of last year, Boden stepped down as CEO of Starling after founding the challenger bank 10 years prior. Yet Boden has been busy recently. Last week she launched her third book, Female Founders’ Playbo...

Sehrish Alikhan

Sehrish Alikhan Reporter at Finextra

How are bank closures impacting local communities?

Following the news of HSBC installing its first ever ‘cash pod’ in Nasilea, North Somerset comes the questioning of how the general public will gain access to cash among numerous bank branch shutdowns. HSBC announced the closing down of 114 bank branches in the UK from April 2023, reporting the reason for the closures due to low footfall for in-pe...