Video interview: Capital Market Report -- How FinTech can Improve ROE

Much has been written about the power and scope of Smart Ledgers and Mutual Distributed Ledgers (MDLs, aka blockchains). Amidst the rush to find new applications for this versatile, ‘trustless’ technology, people overlook the challenge of governing Smart Ledger networks. Governance provides the mechanisms required to balance accountability of the governing body and its duty of meeting the specific objectives of the organisation.

Effective governance of Smart Ledgers should answer four critical questions - How are rules created for the ledger and who oversees their application? What happens in the case of dispute? Who is allowed to change the software application and the data? How are security, risk and performance managed and reported?

One approach is to embed these questions in existing legal structures, another to try to remain outside, but a third is to explore the appropriate role of arbitration, mediation, and expert determination, as far as possible avoiding enmeshing novel identity, document, and agreement exchanges within traditional legal structures.

In this webinar, Professor Michael Mainelli will share research from the Mattereum initiative as well as Long Finance research sponsored by the Cardano Foundation. He will conclude that, while there is nothing new under the sun, Smart Ledgers may need to shift the balance of power from law, to code, to human wisdom.

Bitcoin is all the rage right now. But many question the security behind this popular cryptocurrency.

Join this session where Anupam's agenda will include:

-Brief intro
-Anonymity Vs. Pseudonymity
-Bitcoin working mechanics and cryptography involved
-Forensics
-Transaction conduct and types
-Wallets and types
-Blockchain explorer
-Bitcoin artifacts
-Conclusion

As the Internet of Things (IoT) adds more and more devices to the digital fold every day, organizations of all sizes are recognizing the IoT's potential to improve business processes and, ultimately, accelerate growth.

Meanwhile, the number and variety of IoT solutions has expanded exponentially, creating real challenges. Chief among them: the urgent need for a secure IoT model for performing common tasks such as sensing, processing, storing information, and communicating. But developing such a model involves overcoming numerous hurdles.

Of course, there are multiple ways of looking at the IoT. For instance, the system view divides the IoT into blocks, such as connected things, gateways, network services, and cloud services, while the business view consists of platform, connectivity, business model, and applications. But one common thread connects all these views: security is paramount

IoT applications and devices is the next wave of technology, but security is a big concern. This webinar will explain the convergence of IoT and Blockchain technology.

Listen to expert panellists discuss:
- Today’s landscape of security, authentication and digital identity
- Issues and the future of security, authentication and digital identity
- How is blockchain being applied in this industry?
- How could blockchain do more in this industry?

The advent of Initial Capital Offerings has changed the landscape of Venture Capital in the Blockchain space.

This talk would cover the ICO as a new model to raise capital and compare it with the existing venture capital model, look at current trends in ICO market, what seems to be driving the explosion of ICO's and tokenisation, and also look at the possible impact on VC market.

With a world with a lot of people without the ability to prove their identity, there is a lot of talk about sovereign identity, and the use of blockchain for this purpose.

The presentation will look at the identity challenges, and explore how and if blockchain can have a role in addressing these challenges.

In this presentation, Sunny Aggarwal will explore the history of consensus mechanisms and how Proof of Stake has developed over the last 5 years to become a viable alternative to the energy-intensive Proof of Work model used currently by blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

There has been a surge in investments into the digital currency market in recent months. From beginners to those who have been in the game for a while, this webinar will go over everything you've wanted to know and will give tips to any seasoned investors looking to improve their portfolios.

The panel will discuss:

-How do you get started in digital currency investment?
-What do I need to know about blockchain technology?
-Wallets, bitcoins, alt-coins, ether
-When is the right time to invest?
-Safety concerns and how to keep make secure investments
-Which crypto currencies should you invest in?
-Initial Coin Offerings
-Predictions for 2018

Still confused about this whole Blockchain thing? Interested in investing in digital currencies, but not sure where to start? Want to get a better idea of the threats and opportunities?

David Siegel is a Blockchain, decentralization and business agility expert who has been a high-level management & strategy consultant to companies like Sony, Hewlett Packard, Amazon, NASA, Intel, and many start-ups. David has been praised for being able to explain Blockchain in the most simple and interesting way.

What you will learn:
-What is Bitcoin?
-What is the blockchain?
-What is Ethereum? What is Ether?
-What is a distributed application?
-What is a smart contract?
-What is a triple ledger?
-What about identity and security?
-What business models are at risk?
-What are the opportunities?
-What should we do?

Are we going to see digital central bank currencies in the future? Who will be the next country to introduce its own digital currency?

All these and more will be tackled by our panel, so get your questions ready.

Agenda points will include:

-Is there going to be a Bitcoin crash?
-What are some of the adoption issues for digital currencies?
-The sustainability of blockchain and cryptocurrencies for making and processing payments
-Assessment of risks
-Introducing cryptocurrencies in the mobile world

Join the Webinar: Long Term Impact of PSD2 & How to Select a Partner a Strategic Partner, featuring Vanita Pandey, VP of Product Marketing at ThreatMetrix, as she discusses the long-term impact of the Payment Service Directive (PSD2) and how to find a strategic partners in today’s crowded PSD2 landscape.

The webinar will help you understand:

•How the PSD2 requirements can be implemented in practice
•Long-term impact of the PSD2 directive
•How risk-based authentication (RBA) can be used to optimize the user experience
•How to find a strategic partner in the crowded PSD2 landscape

Digital transformation is a promise that many have been skeptical of. Join this panel where industry experts will tackle all the tough questions and provide new and thought-provoking insights.

Among others, they will discuss:

-Can the banks switch to making money from enabling customers’ healthy financial behaviour, rather than from continuing to exploit ongoing financial self-harm?

-Traditional banking is on the verge of major disruption, so digital transformation had better deliver *actual* transformation. Tinkering is expensively pointless

-Continuing to exploit inertia-driven customer behaviour – and thus coining excess profits - will be seriously challenged by Open Banking

Panelists:
Moderator: Dr. Louise Beaumont, Head of Open Bank at Publicis.Sapient
Aleksi Grym, Head of Digitalisation at Bank of Finland
Bharat Bhushan, Industry Technical Leader, Banking and Financial Markets at IBM

Today the payments industry faces a rebirth by necessity. Financial institutions process massive volumes of customer and payments transaction data, much of it unstructured and untapped.

Cognitive Systems have the ability to understand, reason and learn. In Financial Services applying cognitive capabilities to real world payments issues like safer and faster payments is yielding significant results. Furthermore Risk and Compliance and segment of one engagement are areas where ROI is tremendous when leveraging advanced analytics and artificial intelligence in cohesion.

Learn from real world use cases of how financial institutions globally have gained significant competitive advantage by becoming a truly Cognitive Bank.

Digital transformation is increasingly becoming a major strategic issue for banks. They increasingly understand that digital is not just another distribution channel but a major change in their business models, functioning, cultures themselves with major impacts and demanding change programs across the whole business and value chains.

We will assess how these transformations are taking place, how do they impact the financial services sector, how the implementation of technologies such as blockchain are accelerating the transformation, where are the convergence and in particular how best startups and incumbents can work together.

Moderator: Jean-stephane Gourevitch
Panelists:
Alexa Fernandez, Head of FinTech Partnerships at BBVA
Christoffer Hernaes, Chief Digital Officer at Skandiabanken
Arthur Leung, Product Lead at Curve
Laurence Leyden, General Manager for Financial Services at SAP

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As enterprises evolve their digital infrastructure, service providers need to piece together offerings that will differentiate themselves without breaking the bank. In this panel we will discuss how M&A can provide some missing pieces and what those pieces may be. Join our distinguished panel of finance experts as we discuss key questions such as: Who is likely to go shopping? What firms will be targets? Are networks and datacenters more or less sought after than services and software providers? How are assets being valued? What financing is available and on what terms? We will debate these and more as we explore trends impacting this dynamic sector.

Leadership Panel Session Featuring:
James Henry, Senior Managing Director, Bank Street
Andrew Bartrop, Global Investment Banking, Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

The use of mobile banking apps has doubled in 2 years. How can banks and fintechs capitalise on this and where what are the cool new innovations we can count on seeing next?

Join this session where the panel will discuss:

-The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is just around the corner. How will this change the banking landscape?

-What kind of exciting solutions will appear in the next years?

-What are the most exciting apps/new functionalities that you have seen/expect to come out of PSD2?

-What are some of the most important customer benefits/use cases you see emerging – apart from a better user experience?

-How will mobile banking and personal finance apps change user behaviour? Will approaches such as gamification have a lasting effect on the spending habits/financial literacy of future generations?

-In the past 24 months a considerable number of challenger banks received a banking license from their local regulators. How will these banks change the game for their competitors

-Millennials are at the moment the main target group of challenger banks. Will those new banks be able to successfully acquire a broader customer group?

-What are the major trends that will shape the mobile banking industry in the next 3 to 5 years? API? AI?