42flows.tech

Introduction to banking-as-a-service (BaaS) for software platforms Here are five things you should look for in a BaaS provider: 1. Includes payments services The simplest option is to use one solution that offers both payments and BaaS services. This significantly reduces the complexity required to go to market and scale your offerings, lowering internal cost. Because everything is in one system, you don’t have to worry about complicated funds management and customers only have to share their information once, during onboarding, to access a variety of different financial services. This also allows you to continue focusing on your core product while your provider handles the work needed to solve your customers’ financial pain points. 2. Support for a variety of financial services When you first start providing embedded finance services to customers, you may start with only one service, such as cards. As customer demand grows, you may want to provide access to additional services, such as financial accounts. These various financial services are all related to dealing with money—accessing it, storing it, spending it, and moving it—so your systems need to be able to talk to each other and pass important customer information. Rather than scaling your embedded finance offerings using various point solutions, look for a single system that can support a variety of financial services as you expand. 3. The ability to quickly go to market and iterate You may want to test product/market fit to see if there is demand for the financial services you want to integrate into your product. And depending on how your customers react, you want the ability to iterate or scale quickly. For example, let’s say you add payments to your core solution, allowing your customers to accept money on your platform. You see a lot of interest, but customers tell you that they also want the ability to easily pay for business expenses with their revenue. 4. Ease of integration The best BaaS providers make it as easy as possible for you to get started. While there will be some integration time required, you should be able to access developer-friendly APIs and build on top of ready-to-use financial infrastructure. This way, you can focus on how your core business and embedded finance can work together, rather than building banking infrastructure from scratch, yourself. 5. Streamlined compliance and regulation management Services offered through BaaS providers are part of a regulated industry, resulting in a long list of compliance and regulatory requirements you must manage and maintain. For example, offering expense cards means managing user verification, ensuring PCI compliance, understanding KYC requirements, and maintaining measures to reduce fraud. 👉 Subscribe for more insights https://lnkd.in/d94JgWBU Source Stripe #fintech #banking Brice Ali Alex Michele Nafis Monica Theodora Saleh

Open Banking A monetization playbook for banks. #fintech #openbanking #openfinance Source: Strategy&

Open Banking A monetization playbook for banks. #fintech #openbanking #openfinance Source: Strategy&

#payments rails across the globe and the models behind them have evolved in three major (but very different) patterns and yet they are converging in certain ways. Let’s take a look. About half a century ago, magnetic-striped cards triggered a payments revolution. Swiping plastic cards at POS merchant terminals conquered the west, with Visa and Mastercard managing the rails and becoming an almost mighty duopoly. Cards made a smooth transition into the digitized #economy by embedding in smartphones (and even turning them into processors) and becoming the springboard for the rise of the #ecommerce. While the west was transitioning from old cards to chips, China was driving its own local payments revolution that erupted at the beginning of the 2000s and transformed the country from a purely cash economy to a #digital frontrunner. Starting from high smartphone penetration and bank account ownership, China essentially leapfrogged the card-based (western) model moving directly to a digital set-up built on e-wallets and QR codes and driven by two private companies (Alibaba and Tencent) that managed to build vast (2-sided consumer and merchant) ecosystems that transformed them into ubiquitous SuperApps. In parallel, a third pole had been developing in other parts of the world: —     The payments revolution in Africa was led by telecoms (being the only infrastructure available) by means of an e-#money set-up based on mobile phones. Companies such as Kenya’s M-Pesa (launched in 2007) managed to provide long needed basic financial services (saving and transferring funds, making payments or accepting government subsidies) to large swaths of the population. —     Countries like India or Brazil developed over the past few years state-sponsored real-time payments infrastructures, powering multiple bank accounts into a single app under A2A and P2P models. India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has over 300 mn monthly active users recording 60% y-o-y growth, whereas Brazil’s Pix, launched only in late 2020, has managed to become the most popular payments’ method with over 150 mn users. These parallel evolutionary developments could hardly have been more different: a robust decades-old, card-infrastructure in the west (monopolized by two private companies), against a digital, wallet-based closed-loop model in China (powered by 2 giant ecosystems), versus public, state-sponsored, open, real-time rails in India and Brazil. Despite their very different origins and set-up, digitization has been acting as a huge convergence driver lately: digital wallets, super-apps, real-time payments and CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) are only some of the common underlying elements. As payments evolve to their next phase, a new digital infrastructure is in the making, fast bridging seemingly big structural gaps. Opinions: my own, Graphic sources: Credit Suisse, Alipay, Matthew Brenan, BCB, Bacancy, Alicriti

Banks are chasing a trillion-dollar opportunity. Corporate and commercial banking revenues in the U.S have been growing at 2x the rate of GDP. This report takes a look at the trends and technologies that are changing corporate banking. Here are my main takeaways: 🔶 Corporate and commercial banking revenues hit $2.3 trillion in 2023, with an expected CAGR of 6.4% until 2026. 🔶 The traditional RM-based approach to corporate banking is limiting banks and increasing service costs. 🔶 RMs often focus too much on the top 20% of clients. As a result, they miss out on potential revenue from medium and smaller clients. 🔶 Smaller clients may feel undervalued, and RMs lose chances for cross-selling opportunities. 🔶 Many fintechs have done well in consumer banking, so they’re more than ready to tackle the challenge of serving corporate clients. 🔶 Big banks are using AI and APIs to better integrate with corporate clients’ operations and boost engagement. 🔶 ESG factors will become more important in banking operations and investments. 🔶 Banks need to handle growing regulatory oversight especially around KYC and AML compliance to keep their operations secure and trustworthy. Banks need to explore different areas like AI, cloud computing, and many more to really make the most of the corporate banking opportunity. #Corporate #Banking #Fintech

APIs are silently killing banking giants. Open banking is pushing traditional banks to rethink their roles, with the market set to grow at a CAGR of 23.98% from 2022 to 2028. This report looks into the major steps banks need to take to develop a strong API strategy. Here are my main takeaways: 🔶 Open banking is a global movement driven by both regulations and market forces. 🔶 Open banking offers customers better personalisation, security, convenience, and control in their financial services. 🔶 For banks, this means improved customer engagement, faster time-to-market for new products, and more partnerships with 3rd parties. 🔶 Banks face problems like outdated tech, fragmented data, and regulatory compliance issues when adopting open banking. 🔶 Open banking opens the door to new models like BaaS and embedded finance, which will transform the banking industry even more. 🔶 Banks need a strong API program at the core of their tech setup. Solutions like the Fiorano Open Banking Accelerator can help with this. Banks need to upgrade their technology and infrastructure to adapt successfully to open banking requirements. #Fintech #API #OpenBanking

The State of European Payment Operations - by Numeral Payments are moving from the back to the front office, becoming not just the most efficient way to exchange value, but also an opportunity for competitive differentiation. New business models are emerging. Embedded finance will exceed 7 trillion dollars by 2026, according to consulting company Bain & Company. Payments are accelerating. The global volume of instant payments accounted for 70 billion dollars in 2020 and instant payment volumes are expected to grow at a staggering 30% per year between 2020 and 2024. Based on a survey of 905 finance executives in France, the UK, and Germany, this report outlines the current state of payment operations in Europe. All the ressources from Numeral are here 👉 https://lnkd.in/emJwmepK #Payments #Fintech #EmbeddedFinance #InstantPayment