Madhvi Sonia - Community Author: Finextra Research

US Election 2024: What will Vice President Kamala Harris bring to fintech?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

US Election 2024: What will Vice President Kamala Harris bring to fintech?

This week, Vice President Harris pledged to provide Black male entrepreneurs with one million forgivable loans of up to $20,000 to help them get their businesses off the ground in collaboration with the Small Business Adminstration, bolstering their potential and removing barriers for this group. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Techno...

15 October 2024 /regulation

Hurricane Milton: How to avoid natural disaster scams and fraud

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Hurricane Milton: How to avoid natural disaster scams and fraud

As Hurricane Milton gradually tracks away from Florida, leaving deadly storm surges, flooding rain and high winds in its path, it is an unfortunate reality that fraudsters will try and capitalise on the misfortune and vulnerability of those affected. This week, the US Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financi...

10 October 2024 /crime

What California's AI Safety Bill SB 1047 means for fintech

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

What California's AI Safety Bill SB 1047 means for fintech

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that SB 1047, the first-of-its-kind, controversial AI safety state bill that had Silicon Valley tech giants such as Meta, Google and OpenAI divided, had been vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom. Here’s everything you need to know. What is SB 1047? Also known as the Safe and Secure Innovation fo...

01 October 2024 /ai

How can a nonprofit become a for-profit?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

How can a nonprofit become a for-profit?

OpenAI is restructuring to no longer be led by a non-profit board, and will become a for-profit company, as exclusively reported by Reuters. The ChatGPT creator will own a minority stake in the for-profit and CEO Sam Altman will receive equity in OpenAI, predicted to be worth $150 billion and removing the cap on returns for investors. This news ...

30 September 2024 /ai

Payments processing: Why banks should take a composable approach

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Payments processing: Why banks should take a composable approach

Over the last two decades, many banks have faced the frustration of being locked into high operating costs. Minimal budgets cannot meet business needs for expansion or support the improvement of product offerings. This is partly due to regulatory requirements consuming the lion’s share of the budget and the high cost of maintaining legacy systems. ...

24 July 2024 /payments

US election 2024: What will Trump VP pick J.D. Vance bring to fintech?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

US election 2024: What will Trump VP pick J.D. Vance bring to fintech?

“AI poses a number of safety concerns and I fully admit that there are a number of issues I worry about as AI continues to develop. In particular, you could imagine a scenario where AI makes these chatbots much more efficient, much more believable, allows predators to prey on children more easily online. That is a real concern and something that I...

18 July 2024 /markets

US election 2024: What does Project 2025 say about finance and fintech?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

US election 2024: What does Project 2025 say about finance and fintech?

We went through The Heritage Foundation’s 922 page document 'Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conversative Promise' so you didn’t have to. While it is common for think-tanks from opposite sides of the political spectrum to propose policies for governments-in-waiting, the initiative dubbed ‘Project 2025’ has resulted in recent widespread concern des...

11 July 2024 /markets

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Is Europe ready for MiCA?

Europe is currently at the tipping point of regulating cryptocurrency. The European Union has passed the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which will establish uniform rules for crypto-assets across the EU market. Some of which many believe consumers have been in dire need of for some time. This is an excerpt from the Future of Digital B...

07 June 2024 /crypto

UK Elections 2024: What did Labour and the Conservatives promise ahead of the election?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

UK Elections 2024: What did Labour and the Conservatives promise ahead of the election?

The UK will hold its first general election in five years on 4th July 2024, against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis, bank interest rates being cut, long NHS waiting lists, plans for asylum seekers and migrants to be deported to Rwanda, the Israel-Hamas war, the Russia-Ukraine war, and non-prioritisation of climate change mitigation. In...

06 June 2024 /regulation

Why credit and debit cards are more than just a payment instrument

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Why credit and debit cards are more than just a payment instrument

Ahead of Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, Finextra caught up with Amanda Gourbault, chief revenue officer, CompoSecure, to discuss the future of cards and how they can be used 'beyond just payments,' for example, to enable digital security amid continued credit card fraud and account takeover (ATO) fraud. Cards being used 'beyond' payments As Gourb...

03 June 2024 /payments

US Elections 2024: Will a crypto-savvy President be preferred after the FIT21 bill?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

US Elections 2024: Will a crypto-savvy President be preferred after the FIT21 bill?

May 2024 saw the US House of Representatives pass FIT21 – the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act – in what has been dubbed a watershed moment for the nation’s digital asset ecosystem. Moreover, a recent Harris poll of 1,700 people sponsored by bitcoin ETF issuer Grayscale revealed that a staggering 77% believe that a US p...

30 May 2024 /crypto

What is Mistral AI and why will Le Chat and Mistral Large rival ChatGPT-4?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

What is Mistral AI and why will Le Chat and Mistral Large rival ChatGPT-4?

Arthur Mensch, former DeepMind researcher and CEO of Mistral AI, will take to the Exchange Stage at Money20/20 Europe in June to discuss the French company’s recent €490 million ($533 million) in funding, as well as the release of their two open models - Mistral 7B and Mistral 8x7B - and their multi-year partnership with Microsoft to offer Mistral...

28 May 2024 /ai

Long reads