FinTech Trends

Vishal-Gupta-CEO-Teknospire-e1546267789671[1]
BAAS/SAAS, FinTech Content, FinTech Trends

Teknospire: Connecting FinTech Technologies for Better Living

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The growing demand for cloud computing and need for uninterrupted banking and payments services have forced the financial institutions to look at innovative solutions. Consequently, data-driven approach has become the key to business growth. More and more businesses are engaging in data mining and hence, it is important for technology providers to offer solutions that are ready for the future. Teknospire, a FinTech business company is leading in similar way, which delivers “BaaS” – Banking as a Service platform –over the cloud infrastructure. It focuses on FinTech platforms with an active presence in emerging markets. As the name of the company suggests, everything it creates is inspired by technological innovation. Meet the Entrepreneur Vishal Gupta as the CEO leads the financial inclusion strategy of the company along with the core team, delivering together a solution that is most relevant and required by the financial institutions and population in the last mile. According to him, the only way to enable the digitization for over two billion people globally is to obtain a holistic banking payments solution to the financial institutions, who serve that market. After realizing the fact that almost fifty percent of Indian population is still unbanked and the lack of transparency, Vishal came up with an idea to have a banking solution with features like mobile compatibility and offline data access for last mile. The solution should be lightweight, easy to use and should be compatible with any handset. Finally, Teknospire was born with the idea planted firmly in the ground to enable banking as the fundamental. The Flagship Product The only way for financial institutions to evolve digitally would be to adopt “Digital Banking Platform” in a box and the company’s flagship product “FinX” address all the digital banking hindrances. “FinX”-cloud ready- is the digital banking platform in a box, which ensures that these financial institutions can gain on digital growth quickly with capital, resources, and integrations dependencies. FinX integrates with the CBS/ESB of all the sponsor banks via open APIs based interfaces, for smaller banks to carry out the micro-payments in the semi-urban and rural areas where setting up branches and executing banking operations are CAPEX intensive. The smaller FIs can enjoy their brand equity in their respective markets while riding over the core connectivity engines through sponsor banks. “FinX” has the modular, cloud-ready, open APIs enabled platforms, which offer services such as; Lean Banking, Mobile Banking; Digital Wallet Services Suite, Micro-Payments switch, Digital Cash Management, and cash collections platform, BI and Analytics Engine, Reporting and Reconciliation platform, Merchant Payments platform, and much more. Solving Financial Quandaries Financial inclusion along with the digitization of transaction set at last mile has been a challenge for the financial institutions over the past few decades. There are various reasons behind the lack of digitization at the last mile. The mid-size financial institutions serve the last mile, which includes corporation banks, RRBs, DCCBs, Agri Banks, MFIs etc. These institutions have been trying to replicate similar technology stack as of the bigger banks working with CBS vendors, ESB vendors, merchant payments platforms, and agency banking platforms from multiple vendors. The lack of technical resources to support multiple technologies and understanding the integration and support structures presents a major challenge. The lack of capital to be able to procure the minimum set of institutional platforms towards the digital transformation can halt companies in digitizing process. Packing all of this in a “Baas” offers the banks to reach to remote areas very quickly and build new consumers and revenue streams. Fluid Environment The company states, “Sharp minds work the best when they are let free and that has been the strategy for us, which has worked amazingly well. We follow a flat organization structure, open seating with open discussions policy. It’s a small family and friends working together”. The firm celebrates every single milestone and believes that it helps in keeping the employee spirits up. One measures employee development at Teknospire largely with cross-functional accountability and ownership. In terms of benefits gained by the client, Teknospire has made choices on databases such that, all the transactional data uses the relational properties of a DB while the non-relational and big-data properties allow the firm to build the analytics layers on it with specific data structures. This has really helped the company in churning the relevant offerings for its clients. Global Presence With the mission to enable banking for every individual, Vishal and his team have expanded their reach to other countries like Mozambique, Zambia, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe. The firm is on a mission to build and deliver the right technology, and keep it rolling with its partner banks for the masses. Teknospire has made an impact with quick adoption of the flagship banking platform “FinX” across four countries and had completed over twenty million transactions towards digitization. Future Aid Teknospire wants to stay as a global technology provider and wants to support thousands of financial institutions and SMEs. It will continue to build use cases for the various transactions. It will improve its integration with APIs that will allow multiple participants, including producers and consumers, to connect and interact with each other, and create value beneficial to all stakeholders. Through API integration, the firm will establish consistency in common operations such as authentication, authorization, data models and entitlement. Source :-The 10 best Oracle Partners to Watch in 2018 This blog was originally published at Insightssuccess

Open Banking
Digital Banking, Financial Inclusion, FinTech Trends, Open Banking, Open Banking API

Open Banking: End of Card Payments?

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Any new technology or innovation always opens up the debate about the relevance of such models in the first place. When it comes to the Open Banking APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), the newest offering of FinTech, there are ongoing discussions on how it can bring about a revolutionary banking experience which is beneficial to the end users. The basic idea behind all these innovations remain to offer a better experience to consumers and leverage the choice of integrated systems that are widely available today. However, one of the most intriguing questions around the Open Banking model is about the potential it holds to change the payment ecosystem entirely. How Open Banking works? Taking one of its many applications, to provide assistance to you, so that you get the best of the deals available and can manage your finances efficiently, Open Banking will enable companies to give more accurate personal financial guidance, tailored to your particular circumstances and delivered securely and confidentially. To provide tailored advice, companies need to know how you use your account. At the moment, to get personal financial guidance, you have to hand over your confidential banking information to price comparison websites. Open Banking will use APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to share customer information securely. Companies will be able to use open banking APIs to see your transaction information to tell you what you might save when considering the current account best suited to you. Or if you run a small business you could find the best deals for your business accounts and loans. No in-betweens, no interruptions, just pure and simple direct customer-to-service relations. Open Banking: End of Card Payments in Future? That’s certainly a possibility! Fundamentally, Open Banking is a concept that is all about the free flow of data. It allows third-party service providers to access financial information of the customers securely (with their consent) and in real time. An excellent example of this could be the banking payment mechanism which requires each transaction to be done manually using the payment cards. However, in an Open Banking platform, the API/app could download consumers’ transaction data directly from their accounts to process payments thus enabling cardless transactions. Although the concept is still in its nascent stage and will take some time to shape up, it will allow the third party organizations to initiate payments between the bank accounts of customers. What will probably happen, as a result, is this: Banks will no longer be required for processing the transactions/ card payments. An authorized third-party organization will be able to make payments on behalf of its customers. Customers won’t have to wait in long queues to make purchases using physical cards at stores. They will be able to easily make payments using digital wallets on their SmartPhones or Smart watches using emerging technologies such as Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, etc. Can Open Banking Change The Entire Payment Ecosystem? To be able to understand this significant shift towards cardless payments powered by Open Banking, it is important to have clarity on the working of the payment cards first. The payment card, essentially, is a token backed with a unique PIN or customer’s signature as authentication, which helps in identifying both the payer and the source to process any payment. Enter Open Banking into the picture! Open Banking replaces the payment card with the actual bank details of the customer without requiring any physical validation. By ensuring a robust authentication system in place (such as phone verification), the model can be easily used to process transactions directly. There are several benefits of saying ‘Bye-Bye’ to the cards and using Open Banking APIs to process payments. Benefits of Using Open Banking APIs for Transactions Over Cards a. Cost Saving This is perhaps one of the primary benefits of using Open Banking APIs to process payments instead of using cards. The open banking model is such that it requires no physical token leading to cost savings for card processors and savings on the infrastructure cost for managing expired/fraudulent cards. b. Ease of Setting Up The ease in setting up Open Banking products as compared to the card payment mode is another reason that makes the possibility of this phenomenal shift stronger. The open banking services are designed thoughtfully to offer solutions collaboratively with payment transfers such as allowing easy linking of the credit cards or bank details of the end-users. c. Convenience Convenience and ease of doing transactions is another attraction of the Open Banking model as a whole. Furthermore, storing bank details of customers is much easier as compared to the cumbersome credit card data, considering security & compliance as essential factors while making payment transactions. Instant purchase history, remote deactivation, and biometrics enabled virtual card provisioning are just a few of the features of cardless payments worth mentioning. Open APIs just make it easier for bank customers to transfer their bank accounts, manage payments, and perform transactions through third parties: both banks and non-banks. The concept creates new opportunities for Service Aggregators to offer better customer service from multiple service providers on a single platform. Does Open Banking Model Translate To the Cardless Payments? If you are still wondering about the Pros of moving to Cardless Payments, here is a list of some of the pros of this new way to pay for your everyday purchases using Open Banking API’s: Convenient as you don’t need your card for making payments and can do transactions without keying in a PIN or signing a receipt. Lessens the threat of hacking where the card might be scanned for stealing valuable information. Cardless payment means no reading of magnetic data strip. The verification token (OTP) is for single use only, making it perfectly safe for ‘Use and Forget’. Convenient and quick payments, which mean no hassle of queues and lining up. Cost and time-efficient without any worrying about remembering multiple cards and account details. Taking Stock of Future Possibilities As rightly said by Kristin Moyer, Vice President of Research and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner and I quote, “Open

FinTech, FinTech Trends, Open Banking, Open Banking API

Open Banking API: A Journey

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Data sharing and Big Data have become the trending topics in the financial world of late. With the advent of many Fintech start-ups, traditional banks are undergoing a major shift. They, now, are looking forward to modifying the way they operate, to survive the cut-throat competition from their peers. This is when the idea of Open Banking started doing rounds in the banking arena. What Is Open Banking API? In short, it is an Outbound Trade – Stretching beyond the 4 walls of the bank for better services to the customers. The concept relies on connecting computing systems through a common digital language shared among them with the aid of an Application Program Interface (API). Open Banking is a financial services term as part of the financial technology that refers to: The use of Open APIs that enable third-party developers to build applications and services around the financial institution. Greater financial transparency options for account holders ranging from Open Data to private data. The use of open source technology to achieve the above. Thus, “Open Banking is the possibility of creating new digital business and ecosystems through APIs provided by the banks.” This would increase the level of transparency with respect to data accessibility for end customers. It would also help Fintech firms and other third parties to develop and build financial applications. This, in turn, would help banks and other financial institutions to look beyond their businesses and make innovatory advancement in services for the end users. How Did ‘Open Banking’ Concept Take Flight? Open banking was developed based on an idea of Open Innovation coined by Henry Chesbrough who was the head of Open Innovation, Haas School of Business. He came up with the idea that an information or knowledge doesn’t belong to a singular entity and needs to be shared. This concept was later taken up by the banking sector as ‘Open Banking’ to innovate the way they operate and give a holistic banking experience to its customers. Data Sharing – The Journey so Far Until recent times, your financial history was closely guarded and protected by your bank. Your data could only be accessed when you use your debit or credit card for certain transactions through the payment processors. Hence unless you are officially validated, you can’t access an individual’s banking history. However, your banking data still found a way to get to other companies who could use it for their business promotion. How was that even possible, you may ask! Screen Scraping The only way one could get hold of your financial history was through screen scraping.  This was possible by getting your login credentials and using that to access your account for the required data. This was not only unsafe and risky but also highly inconvenient as it gives the said company access to your most confidential information (that could also be misused) and might even lead to frequent blocking of your account (in case of suspicious activity). Hence this needed fixing! The most important part here is the need to control the data that you are willing to share and also the power to revoke it whenever you feel the need to. Open Banking API to the Rescue! To give a control over their data to the customers, banking institutions adopted a newer and updated technology which shared the banking data between the third parties through APIs. This is a sustainable model which is not only reliable but also secure. However, on the flip-side, such advancements may lead to conflicts and need strict governance and policies to control the technicalities associated with such an arrangement. Also, such data sharing systems need high-grade security controls and infrastructural barriers to contain the data privacy. The All-New PSD2 Standards for Data Security! The revised Payment Services Directive or the PSD2 is an upgrade of the existing directive to regulate and control the payment services and service providers in the EU. The main aim for this revision was to minimize conflicts between two or more third parties involved in data sharing and to ensure consumer protection and data privacy. In fact ‘PSD2 + Open Banking and APIs’ is considered as an Engine for Innovation and meaningful change. This directive is said to be of monumental importance in the legacy of data sharing in the retail banking sector. It would control the way the APIs behave and are controlled. They would dictate how third parties connect, share information and the scope of information that can be accessed. By this, the Third Party Providers (TPPs) registered across the participating states can communicate with any bank provided they clear the SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) norms and the data exchange also conforms with the SCA norms. This would mean that every third party involved in data sharing would have to go through diligent scrutiny to verify their authenticity. Open Banking: Inbound trade @ Teknospire Well, it’s not only about the Outbound Trade, Open Banking is also about Inbound Trade. It is also about trading the right products and service features seamlessly from Third Party Partners (TPPs) into their own offerings. Importing the full breadth of these products and features enhances personalized customer experience, build customer loyalty and it also lowers bank’s operational costs. With Open Banking, by adding ‘Banking and Non-Banking’ products and features, banks are able to extend their services beyond the ‘traditional zone’ and broaden their approach beyond financial services to complement further as ‘Complete Customer Banking Journey’. Teknospire, a FinTech Company, has helped multiple banks and financial institutions in multiple countries in Africa (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, South-Africa), India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. The core mission and vision are to serve the Bottom 2 billion population, who are not on the digital payments platforms yet. Teknospire enables the banks / financial institutions to build a digital ecosystem with Omni channels interface, along with all possible digital services dispensation at the last mile. The services can be disbursed via B2C interfaces or through the assisted channels (digital touch points/agent network). To be able to digitally evolve the banks

Banking need to be Omnichannel
FinTech Trends

Why do Fintech Start-ups need to be Omnichannel and not Multichannel?

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A few years back when we were looking for a Locker facility in our neighborhood, we found the state cooperative bank as the best choice. With the focus on availing only the Locker facility, we never explored the options like internet banking or mobile banking for the bank. Later with demonetization, Aadhaar linking and KYC norm change, we had to visit the branch frequently making it a bit inconvenient. During one of those visits we were informed that they had launched their mobile app banking, provided us with the credentials and play store information. When we installed and started using it, we felt visiting the branch was a better option than struggling with the unfriendly UI design and abrupt error messages. The above scenario is an example of how banking is multichannel but fail to be an omnichannel experience. Is your fintech start-up also committing the same mistake? The Omnichannel Experience As Frost and Sullivan, say – Omni-channel Customer Experience strategy is one of the top business priorities today. Serving the Digital Nomad, the start-ups need to offer connectivity 24*7, reliability, convenience and most importantly consistency across multichannel. Omnichannel Experience allows the client to choose, creating a difference between the want and the need. It lets the customer be the king, and that helps the firm to enrich their database with loyal customers. Courtesy – IBM Why Omnichannel Strategy Helps Fintech? The primary question being “Why should any startup adopt omnichannel strategy”? And the answer might not be straightforward but if you are keen – To give fierce competition to your peers Challenge the legacy systems and processes In Gathering 360-degree customer view To acquire new customer base by offering rich user experience To interact with customers via their preferred mode To offer customized and personalized banking services To launch device independent [Mobile, Laptop, Tablets] solutions To Provide agility and flexibility to your clients Then adopting Omnichannel Strategy is a MUST!   Which Omnichannel Channels are Good for Fintech? If your firm specializes in wallets and Money Transfer, you might need to look for mobile, web, analytics and social media. Else if your start-up is into insurance or insurtech, you might need to realign your strategy that could help in offering on-demand coverage integrated with Analytics, social media, mobile compatibility and in-branch digitization. The thought is to analyze your customer needs and then straighten your omnichannel experience. Here is the list of possible channels that Fintech firms need to look for – Omnichannel Experience for Fintech   How Teknospire Offers Omnichannel Experience to its Clients? We are living in a digital age where multi-channel is not an option; it must be unified. The need of the hour is to provide human interaction with technology. Teknospire with its consistent efforts to deliver last mile banking solutions has tried and tested FinX to make it omnichannel. So be it the Agent who is keen to enter data via his mobile or the customer willing to know the account balance via USSD, we make sure our services are continuous across all access channels. Come and be a part of this revolution… would you? References- Kiosk Icon by – Icon Finder BackBase – Omni-Channel Banking Bank Innovation – Omni Channel Give way to Omni Digital Cloud Lending Inc – Lending Blog Creating OmniChannel Banking Experience Consumers Banking Tech – OmniChannel The New Normal For Retail Banks LinkedIn – Architecture OmniChannel Digital Banking – Yogesh Bhatt Telus International BBVA – Five OmniChannel Strategies Digital Transformation FinExtra – OmniChannelBanking.pdf IBM -Omnichannel_banking.pdf Infosys – omni-channel-banking.pdf

FinTech Trends

FOUR PILLARS OF DIGITAL BANKING

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Banks are aware of the fact that they are no longer serving the traditional customer base, they are in dire need to transform their business models and stay relevant in the industry. Here are the four pillars that could help the banks in realigning their business models either with a handshake with fintech firms or revamping themselves. Omnichannel Presence and UX Experience Omnichannel banking not only helps one in smoother transactions but also optimizes customer experience. And if one thinks that Omnichannel is just about providing ‘n’ number of options for clients to interact with the customer, then they are under a wrong impression. Omnichannel is all about seamless and consistent interaction with one’s client. Or as The Economist quotes– “Omnichannel as a strategy that allows customers to shop with smartphones, tablets, laptops and even in stores as if waited upon by a single salesman with an unfailing memory and uncanny intuition about their preferences.” On adopting to Omnichannel strategy, banks would allow anywhere, anytime, any device access with steady experience across channels. Omnichannel also enables interactions across several customer touch points, deriving insights, optimizing and personalizing conversations. Omnichannel presence, when integrated with excellent UX design, is like magic on one’s customers. As per stats, 78% of the time that customers spend on offline banking services is wasted. As most of the UX design lack appeal and usability, many customers are not able to experience pleasant banking digitally. As pointed out by experts there are seven fundamental principles of UX design that need to be included, and they are – Simplicity, Mobile First, Transparency, Aesthetic, Personalization, Self-service,  and Holistic. Social Good Yes, Banks and Banking was evolved to act as an intermediator between the buyer, seller, investor, and investments. But banking could help in addressing the social challenges of the society as well. While to start on ethical banking, the first step is to enable banking for people who lack KYC or do not have branches near to them, or for people who find it hard to pay for banking services that imply enabling Financial Inclusion. Next step is to provide affordable loans at minimal charges to help community members sustain, that means the ability to start their own business, ability to acquire new skills or even execution of entrepreneurial skills. Good Banking could also mean caring for the environment that means usage of mobile wallets, electronic fund transfer, using a renewable source of energy such as the sun, paperless bills and statements KYC, etc. API and Open Banking API’s are the gateway for contextual, innovative solutions. With its expansion it is more comfortable to offer extensive options to clients customizable needs, that may not be an option with legacy organizations. APIS could help banks in pursuing new distribution channels and also in improving the customer’s digital banking experience. Even the product development process could be quick and TTM[Time to Market] could be reduced with modular or API architecture. That means your application could respond to rapid changes, that is the need of the hour. According to the WRBR, 78.3% of banks are counting on APIs to help them improve the customer experience, with fintech firms agreeing. API’s are indeed opening up newer revenue streams for the banks and fintech. Data Power Data and analytics are enabling banks and fintech firms to understand customers better, identify business opportunities and reduce costs. With Analytics on board, the financial institutions could anticipate on the loan defaults or pinpoint the consumers who are taking advantage of overzealous discounting and restructure the price of the products and services.  Diving deep into the analytics allows companies to compare an individual client product details with the average, that could help in enabling personalization and customization thereby deepening -firm-client relationship. Data mining another aspect of Data Science can help effectively in finding better prospect and clients. Prioritizing leads and establishing a connection with the existing and potential client is another benefit of data mining. One could also combine behavioral analytics to identify consumers who are a flight risk and then create individual action plans to keep these consumers loyal. Teknospire Well-Equipped with Four Pillars Could Help Banks in conversion to Digital Bank Teknospire that is well equipped with the four pillars,i.e., Omnichannel, API architecture, Social Good [i.e., Financial Inclusion] and Analytics could help your bank in being the DIGITALBankthrough its flagship product FINX 360degree. FINX 360 degree offers modules of Agent Banking, Payments, Mobile Money and Analytics. For further information on how to build a digital bank on four platforms, please contact us here.

FinTech Trends

SIX MYTHS OF OPEN BANKING

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Its just six months that PSD2 came into force, and the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) stats demonstrate that in June, there have been 1.2 million uses of open banking API’s, up from 720,000 in May. Another report from the Open Data Institute and PwC highlight that the Open Banking market by 2022 could be generating £7.2 billion. The research that included big banks, payment providers, technology vendors, consumers, SME’s across the UK stated that only 18 percent of customers know what open banking means, that would reach to 64 percent by 2022. Conceptually, with small mob knowing about a concept, either rest of them are completely ignorant or have their perspective, this post is all about breaking those myths and shaking hands with Facts of Open Banking. Read Next – OPEN BANKING INITIATIVES IN SINGAPORE, AUSTRALIA, HONG KONG AND INDIA Myths Of Open Banking PSD2 and Open Banking are Same The motive of the PSD2[ Revised Payment Service Directive]  and Open Banking are same, geographically and technically [a bit] they differ. Here are the differences PSD2 Open Banking EU Region UK initiative Applies to Payment Accounts Applies to Current Accounts   Open BankingWould mean any firm could turn into a Bank No that’s not reassuringly true. As per Open Banking regulations, Banks would be forced to make payment and account data available through secure API’s [Application Programming Interface], to offer customer more liberty and control in how/with whom they interact as their financial service providers. By enabling Open API, consumers could use exciting services offered by third parties. So Bank and Banking services would still exist, Open Banking is just enabling a smoother interaction between a Bank and a Firm. Read Next – ALPHABETS OF OPEN BANKING   Open Banking is different from API Banking Interestingly, Open Banking could also be named as API Banking. API [first used in the 1960s] or Application Programming Interface is defined as – a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an instant message or check the weather on your phone, you’re using an API. So the API forms a base to any software of any sector viz Finance, Health, Manufacturing, Telcom, etc. Let’s pick an example – A firm has an API that could be used as your money manager or analyze your spending habits; now this API need to communicate with another client who could provide him with that data. Who has all the Banking/payment data? Banks? So this API could connect to Bank’s API [again only after the customer authorizes the firm to access the data] and now could serve as a money manager tool. So this is how an API is now contributing to API Banking, that existed long before PSD2 or Open Banking Regulation was born. So, the API with PSD2/Open Banking Regulation is now API Banking or Open Banking. Read Next – OPEN BANKING – EXAMPLES, USE CASES, IMPLEMENTATION, OPPORTUNITIES   Open Banking would let all my data/information to third parties without my consent Be it PSD2 or Open Banking both initiatives make it clear that only “trusted third parties” can access customer account information and customer need to provide their consent even for these trusted third parties to obtain your information like transaction details, payments. The motive of the initiative is to create competition thereby providing the best and innovative services to the customer at the best price. If the customer agrees to share their financial information with trusted third parties, they could gain insights to better offers, better financial products more control of their own money with new models to help them manage their finances effectively. Open Banking would make Banks nonexistent The fact is Open Banking would help third parties to access financial data [with customers consent] to be used for value-added services. So the Banks would remain as a licensed financial institution that receives deposits, make loans and offer services like wealth management, safe deposit boxes,etc. So, yes third parties would have your Data with YOUR CONSENT from Banks, but they would not be turning into a bank. Hence Banks are here to stay. The organisations would be working in conjunction with core banking engine that cannot be replicated by a third party so easily. The newer tech companies are looking into giving more customer experience’s. Open Banking is for banks and not customers Though the concept is Open Banking, it is only targeted to individuals who avail banking. As mentioned earlier the initiative focuses on the customer needs by enforcing competition leading to the best and innovative services to the end user at the best price. If you still have doubts, you can read our exhaustive post that details on whether Open Banking is comforting to the customers or not. Read Next – OPEN BANKING – IS IT COMFORTING TO CUSTOMERS OR NOT? Teknospire Breaking the Myths of Open Banking Teknospire with an API driven model has been listed with Oracle marketplace and is available for the use of Payments. Teknospire has recently collaborated with Latin American APIs aggregator “Finconnecta” that is a FinForwardAccelerator to help inclusion and digitization. For more information on our products and services, please explore our website or contact us here. Reference: ComputerWorld YoloWallet

TEKNOSPIRE BLOGS
FinTech Trends

Top 9 Global Fintech Blogs

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Blogs, news, & articles are the most sought-after medium to catch up on the latest technological happenings especially in the fintech and payments arena. Overcrowding of the internet space has made finding popular and content rich blogs a tough task at hand. So here we are with an infographic presentation of the popular global fintech blogs with the links.   Finextra – https://www.finextra.com Medici – https://gomedici.com/ PYMNTS – https://www.pymnts.com/ Daily Fintech – https://dailyfintech.com Fintech weekly – https://www.fintechweekly.com/ Finovate – http://finovate.com/ Payment Source – https://www.paymentssource.com/ The fintech times – https://www.ft.com/ Teknospire – http://blog.teknospire.com/

FinTech Trends

IS YOUR FIRM OPEN BANKING READY?

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Open Banking Rule was introduced in January 2018 with a prime motive to empower customers. Today where “Experience, Convenience and Priority” means customer service, Open API Banking is an initiative to streamline the banking services and put the customer first. Open Banking protocol advises financial institutions to use Open API to allow the flexibility of sharing individuals data with other financial companies, once a customer provides consent to share the data. It offers the customer the stability and control over their financial data, assisting in making informed decisions about the various financial products available. While PDS2 was incepted to benefit banking sector, Open API services are also helpful in other areas like Health, Insurance, Telecommunications, and Energy. So how do you plan to prep your firm with Open API Banking? Let’s explore – Prepping Your Firm To Offer Open API Banking Services Traditionally, Banks were always symbolized as four thick walls made of hard concrete, with a chained gate that was armed by a security guard. Today Modern banking is much different, and could be availed from the “neighboring grocery store”. Urban banking marks the fundamental shift in technological and operational thinking. Additionally API services are another way of advancing into availing secured yet convenient banking services. With API in the picture, Banks could collaborate with third parties or fintech firms to offer its customers best-in-class plug and play services. However, the plug-and-play model does raise some questions to its customer like – Who owns my data? How should I connect to a third party app? Would it be secured? What type of charges be applied? To answer these questions, a firm needs to have a proper framework documented for its customer to ensure API Banking reaps benefits for the very purpose, for which it was ideated. Let’s take a closer look at the Open Banking checklist a firm should follow – Adopt Data Driven Models With PSD2 in place, Data is the new driving force in the banking sector. Unlike in the olden days when a customer name, amount to be withdrawn, amount to be deposited, interest earned in such fields were sufficient for record keeping. Today the urban customer is more keen to know his spending habits, the best interest rate a Bank could offer or the deals floating in his/her neighborhood. Each transaction could build a new use case for the firm. So make sure to include Data-driven strategies while planning to launch your open API’s. No Compromise With Trust Trust is the major key to any business. Modern customer is smart enough, not to fall up for your 50$ signup or one Google login for all applications. He knows how each byte of data shared could cost him with spams, hacks or those marketing calls. So make sure to responsibly, securely manage the data while acquiring, using or redistributing it to your downstream applications. At each step mention the type of data you would be accessing and the rights you purchase, for mutual trust and earning a loyal customer. Know Open Banking Standards If we look at the history of Open Banking Standards evolution, it was initiated in Berlin with an API developer portal that is open-source, open-standards, and open data. Later in September 2015, United Kingdom[UK] formed Open-Led Banking Group [OBWG] to streamline new framework and create an open banking standard. Finally, the European Union [EU] launched PSD and PSD2 directive to push Bank out of their comfort zone and strengthen digital offerings. The standards laid by these groups narrates how an API specification should be drafted. They help in regularizing how fintech firms or other third party API providers connect to the financial institutions, safely and securely. The standards assure consumer protection and transparency. Following standards would help your firm in setting a benchmark and trust from Bank, financial institutions and customers. Follow Hybrid and Agile Approach Technology has opened up new doors; potential customers are now at every place be it urban or rural areas. So while your firm may be building an API for urban customers to track his location and  order the best food near the client’s location. You may also need to work for a client sitting in the remote area whose only need is to manage his financial portfolio. Hence the team needs to evolve to become a hybrid blend of skills and individuals that are agile ready while working together. So at one hand when an individual might be working on urban customer needs, after a few days he might need to communicate with a rural person. Or the IoT technology that is handy for urban client, might need a work around to work without internet for a remote area. The hybrid approach helps to cut down the traditional approach of working on one skill/task for years. With ever-changing customer demands and needs team and firms need to evolve and fulfill their expectations. The Legal Side of Open Banking Another crucial point of open banking is – Data Sharing, while the game is all set legal side could be a twist for many firms. Hence you need to have regulatory permissions, documents and deeds mentioning the activities and ownership about each task, Business continuity plan, incident reporting processes, cyber security policies, protection against risks, fraud and illegal use of data. Quite recently, to tackle data protection and liability, EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into existence. The regulation helps customer to be fully aware, in a clear, concise and transparent fashion, of how their personal data will be used and by whom. How Teknospire is progressing with APIs? Teknospire has always taken advantage of Open API, be it when they launched their first product – Salary Automation for civil servants of Zimbabwe, or when their API design has helped these civil servants to get connected to a platform to pay bills or initiate transfer. Post the first leg we geared up to help solopreneurs or banking agents to use the digital platform and help in last

FinTech, FinTech Trends

Why is Customised FinTech Banking Platform in vogue?

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The secret to consumer loyalty is ‘Relationship Banking’ and the mantra is ‘Serve first, Sell later’. ‘Platform customization‘ service is an effective way to attract and maintain more customers, as long as the costs associated can be controlled effectively. Designing the tailored solution that is ‘just right’ for the client gives them the proud feeling of ‘owning it’ rather than ‘using it’. With transactions, synonym to self-service, are increasingly moving online, the little remains of the customer service must be made even better. In this digital age, the brand and customer touch-points are the key selling points. Technology is increasingly changing consumers’ needs and expectations. Usually,  e-commerce platforms are built around the idea that ‘one size fits all’. While this works for small businesses, anyone who is looking for ‘an out of the box’ solution should be looking out for ‘an out of the box’ platform too. So customization should be at the core of a flexible e-commerce platform that is ready to cater to the diverse business needs of ‘one and all’. Since there has been a drastic increase in digital payments and transactions post demonetization, many new users from both urban and semi-rural areas are adopting digital transactions. According to a white paper by ACI Worldwide along with AGS Transact Technologies (AGSTTL), the user base for digital transactions in India is currently close to 90  million with a projection of 300 million by 2020. This creates a constant demand for more and more reliable, holistic and scalable technology for digital payment platforms. Why is Customization of the FinTech Banking Platform Needed? While a lot of banking organizations have started re-shaping their payment systems and processes as per the users’ needs and payment behavior, many find mass penetration extremely challenging. The only solution is to build it customized and flexible to accommodate the growing demands of innovation and scalability. The service providers/ aggregators must be able to offer the bank and its client maximum return and full control over the financial architecture. This can only happen by means of a better understanding of the business policies and regulatory parameters. This would also bring all types of banking transactions onto one user-friendly platform which is secure and compliant with all regulations. It also provides many value-added services like payment of utility bills and recharges for its customers at one place. By enabling customization, banks can look at: Cutting operational costs by means of virtual and branchless transactions. Connect with a larger customer base and providing them with holistic banking experience virtually. Bypass the existing international payments network and thus resulting in more savings to both customers and the banks. Simplified procedures to save, secure and automatically share database across all the branches. Seamless transactions which give total control to the customers without the need for a bridge between the end-user and the banks. Improved saving and investment structure with minimal settlement time and cost. Needs vary from one person to other, and there is no ‘one size fits all’ rule. There are many things that you can achieve via customization of the platform that you won’t get in the general banking solutions. The main reason behind the necessity of customization is to be able to provide you with all the required features based on your needs and requirements. Key pointers to look for while customizing the platform B2B (agents/super agents), B2C (direct consumers) aspects need to take care of with a similar transaction flow. The solution should support all the interfaces such as Web, Mobile, USSD, SMS. It should have the capability to process online transactions as well as offline ((Especially in case of loans/insurance/tax/school fee collections, Pin based vouchers etc). It should be integrated with inbuilt business intelligence, analytics, and reporting modules with a real-time view for transaction monitoring purposes. Standard API should be used for other consumption networks to ride on the aggregated services. The solution should have the flexibility to integrate over multi-protocols viz. SOAP, ISO8583, HTTPS, file-based, Rest API, MT103, and MT104 etc. Multi-level authentication on the transaction (OTP/password/biometric) and encryption levels RSA2048, AES, SHA Hash etc should be supported. All business configurations like user roles, Access controls, commissions, discounts, products, services, accounting/reports, GLs and many more depending upon the customer’s requirements should be possible via the admin interface. Supports In-built customer support interfaces to record each customer query and resolutions. Also supports In-built auto-reconciliation feature for system transactions settlement with the 3rd party services providers. Should support system/transactions real-time monitoring with alarms configurations and different severity levels. The solution should have the capability to operate over cloud infra, the hybrid model or on-premise deployment. How are organizations getting benefitted from platform customization? With mobile technology becoming a huge facilitator to reach semi-urban and rural masses, connecting them with mobile banking would enable them to simplify the transactions. It will also facilitate digital transactions even from the unbanked segments of our economy promoting last-mile banking. Total control over financial management by monitoring dial-ups and directly attached devices. Bringing down the total ownership cost. Easy addition of POS device terminals with minimal or no downtime. Improve efficiency of operation through speeding time-to-market and increase revenue on a per-transaction basis. Make the payments more secure, reliable and simplified. Easy addition, edition and deletion of terminals and creating an omnichannel based transaction system. Gain a competitive edge by the ability to offer multi-currency dispensing and other value-added card features. Processing online as well as offline payment on a high-technology driven platform. Looking back, we at Teknospire, started our journey in 2015. Our flagship product “FinX” helps financial institutions to bring FinTech driven banking solution for the last mile. Its a complete package with well-integrated above-mentioned specifications and much more, and offers a secure and seamless banking experience. For more information please visit our website. Teknospire: Milestones Teknospire’s FinX FinX Digital Banking Solution Our FinX Agency Banking Suite enables a bank or financial institution to cost-effectively extend its branch network through the use of appointed and authorized banking agents. Another feather in our

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