Hamish Monk - Community Author: Finextra Research

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

How to build a mobile banking app

Mobile banking’s fledging iteration in the 1990’s was conducted via handsets’ Short Message Service (SMS). The offering was limited and inflexible – customers could check their balance or request to be warned if they were about to become overdrawn. By 1999, the world’s first Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) enabled mobile banking services in No...

14 October 2024 /payments

Making embedded cross-border payments in Africa work

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Making embedded cross-border payments in Africa work

This is an excerpt from the Future of Embedded Finance in Africa 2025 report. Africa continues to pursue new technologies and innovations to facilitate cross-border payments. Embedded finance and remittances in this arena could be the next steps to streamline the process for end-users – as well as boost financial inclusion and trade. Country he...

14 October 2024 /payments

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is digital identity?

Digital identity is the sum of online information on an individual. This can be any form of data associated with a person’s name – be it date of birth, address, email, or even social media posts and interactions. As such, digital identity can be thought of as an online avatar, representing the spheres of one’s personal and professional life. The c...

08 October 2024 /identity

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is Open Banking?

After the financial crisis, there was a recognition that banking concentration could be disadvantageous – both in terms of competition and systemic risk. Since then, regulatory measures have sought to boost diversity in financial services, the most notable of which is Open Banking. Launched in the United Kingdom on 13th January 2018 following the ...

01 October 2024 /payments

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is core banking?

With modernisation ever at the forefront of financial professionals’ minds, core banking is the buzz phrase that just won’t go away. But what exactly do we mean by core banking? And why does it need updating? In this latest article of Finextra’s explainer series, we’ll dive deep into the history and transformation of core banking. A short history ...

24 September 2024 /retail

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is mobile banking?

Mobile banking enables customers to manage financial services – such as their balance, transfers, standing orders, statements, direct debits, overdrafts, and bill payments – via their smartphones. For this reason, mobile banking – compared to other legacy banking channels such as branch, internet, and even carrier pigeon – is the fastest-growing ch...

17 September 2024 /payments

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is hybrid cloud?

Hybrid cloud is a computer programming architecture used by IT teams to reap the benefits of both the private and public hosting environments. These work in tandem to run an organisation’s workload and applications. Uses of hybrid cloud An example of a firm within the financial services industry which might find use for the hybrid cloud environm...

12 September 2024 /cloud

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Understanding SaaS

Software-as-a-service, often contracted to ‘SaaS’, benefits consumers and businesses around the world daily. As one of the three constituents of cloud computing – infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) being the other two – SaaS, delivers software and applications over the internet, via a subscription model. This, in ...

19 August 2024 /cloud

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is embedded finance?

The Covid-19 pandemic was one of the key drivers (open banking the enabler) of global embedded finance adoption. According to Global Market Insights, the embedded finance market shot to $58 billion by 2022, and is estimated to clock-in a 29% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) until 2032 – by which point it could exceed $730 billion. A new ecosys...

13 August 2024 /payments

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

What is an API?

The world of financial services is increasingly connected. This is thanks to the unsung hero of the digital world: application programming interfaces, or APIs – a millennial innovation opened out to the financial sector through a series of open banking regulations, including the first installment of the Payment Services Directives, in 2007. APIs, ...

05 August 2024 /devops

How to onboard a new customer: Streamlining banks' journeys

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

How to onboard a new customer: Streamlining banks' journeys

Customer onboarding describes the process by which banks and financial institutions take uninitiated individuals and give them access to pre-agreed products. The challenges around this journey include bringing numerous segments of the bank together; ensuring communication with the customer is clear and concise; as well as that all compliance boxes...

30 July 2024 /retail

Hamish Monk Senior Reporter at Finextra

Understanding consumer duty

With the UK’s Consumer Duty standard due to come into force this month, it is time for a recap on its objectives, how it is working to improve consumer protection for financial firms, and what can be expected from the annual board attestation on 31 July 2024. Good outcomes for customers Announced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2021 an...

23 July 2024 /regulation

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