Tag: FinTech

innovation that aims to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services through usage of modern technology

NIST Blockchain Technology Overview

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hast published a draft report on blockchain. This report is an excellent summary and overview of the technology, its key characteristics and use cases.

“Blockchains are immutable digital ledger systems implemented in a distributed fashion (i.e., without a central repository) and usually without a central authority. At their most basic level, they enable a community of users to record transactions in a ledger that is public to that community, such that no transaction can be changed once published.”

This has the following implications on organizations:

“However, on a blockchain, it is much more difficult to change data or update the ‘database’ software. Organizations need to understand the extreme difficulty in changing anything that is already on the blockchain, and that changes to the blockchain software may cause forking of the blockchain. Another critical aspect of blockchain technology is how the participants agree that a transaction is valid. This is called “reaching consensus”, and there are many models for doing so, each with positives and negatives for a specific business case.”<

Indeed – this highlights a few foundational aspects – blockchain realizes high data integrity and immutability based on a certain level of transparency required to reach a consensus on the validity of transactions. The report outlines the most important consensus algorithms – each with its drawbacks and advantages.

  • “In the proof of work model, a user gets the right to publish the next block by solving a computationally intensive puzzle.”
  • “The proof of stake model is based on the idea that the more stake a user has in the system, the more likely it will want the system to succeed, and the less likely it will want to subvert it.”
  • “In some blockchain systems there does exist some level of trust between mining nodes. In this case, there is no need for a complicated consensus mechanisms to determine which participant adds the next block to the chain.”

The report also explores the most important types of blockchains :

  • If anyone can read and write to a blockchain, it is permissionless.
  • If only particular users can read and write to it, it is permissioned.

The permissioned blockchains are similar to an intranet only visible to the nodes on this network while a permissionless blockchain mimics the characteristics of the Internet.

“The use of blockchain technology is not a silver bullet, and there are issues that must be considered such as how to deal with malicious users, how controls are applied, and the limitations of any blockchain implementation. That said, blockchain technology is an important concept that will be a basis for many new solutions.”

The technology is indeed no silver bullet but is has huge potential for all applications which require a shared agreement and a high level of security.

“Blockchain technologies have the power to disrupt many industries. To avoid missed opportunities and undesirable surprises, organizations should start investigating whether or not a blockchain can help them.”

NIST asks for comments and feedback until February 23, 2018.

 

How to explain ‘new’ things like bitcoin …

Let’s assume for a moment around year 1860 you are horse rider working for the Pony Express. You and your colleagues are doing, on a daily basis, a fantastic job delivering messages between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts ( it takes approximately 10 days). During a ride you start to see placement of wires on poles. You try to understand and to explain to your partner of this. What would you say? “ they are building a continental fence high up in the air” or at some point you understand some aspects of what this new thing does. At the moment of realisation would you still be convinced that only people on horses working for solid companies can reliably deliver messages over such a long distance. Eventually working in this paradigm will no longer be valid as you notice the decrease in demand for horses and riders.

Now let’s switch back to crypto currencies with Bitcoin as the prominent example and have a look at some of the arguments discussed on various media these days. It is very difficult to explain cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, with a simple comparison to something else.

“Bitcoin has no value” – this is somehow the wrong discussion. Most currencies don’t have one – fiat currencies have declared value by authorities and maintain it as long as people trust the system. The latin word ‘fiat’ simply means “it shall be’ – an authority declares something to be a currency. Bitcoin was created in the last financial crisis. The genesis block contains the message “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”. It is an attempt to create a decentral form of money where no central authorities have an influence. So the key question is not the ‘value’ – it is about how trust is built. What’s better – the declaration of an authority or the community?

“Bitcoin is a currency” – sounds reasonable as we all deal with one or more currencies each day and as Bitcoin started to become an aspect in our daily life. But what is a currency? It turns out that currency definitions like the one on Investopedia are not so helpful.

“Currency is a generally accepted form of money, including coins and paper notes, which is issued by a government and circulated within an economy. Used as a medium of exchange for goods and services, currency is the basis for trade. ”

If this definition is true, then Bitcoin is not a currency as it is not issued by a governmental authority. Also, the definition of money is linked to a government. Hence Bitcoin is also not money, if the definitions are considered to be valid.

“Bitcoin is not a medium of exchange” – as transaction costs and volatility are high and making small transactions unattractive to mine. Although Bitcoin is currently not an option for small amounts but could well be used for large ones.

“Bitcoin is made of thin air” – on the basis that there is no underlying physical resource. But what does this mean? Bitcoin is itself a resource on a strict mathematical base. It is not created out of thin air – its creation is the result of a well-defined and completely transparent algorithm which we all can verify and decide to trust or not to trust. Comparing this to ‘fiat currencies’  do you know how ‘fiat currencies’ are created? Do you know who decides to increase the amount of currency or to adjust the value of one against another currency? Is this done in a transparent way?

“Bitcoin is fraud” – what is the basis and evidence of such statement?. Looking at the original whitepaper of Satoshi Nakamoto this is simply wrong. Sure, there are fraudulent use cases, but this is also the case with all other currencies or assets. It turns out that Bitcoin is not really a good medium to be used e.g. in ransomware. All transactions in Bitcoin are publicly observable – we do not know the individual owning an address but that does not hinder to monitor target addresses and intervene at exchanges when they are used. In other words – using Bitcoin always leaves traces while using e.g. cash does not.

“Bitcoin needs regulation” – sounds also great as rules are essential to create trust. A system which is weak needs a lot of surrounding rules and interventions while there are systems which contain the rules transparently in their core. Bitcoin itself is regulated by the maths embedded in the system itself but not by the traditional financial services regulators or national banks. What authorities can and should do, is to think about the exchange of Bitcoin against the fiat currency they oversee and the implications.

“Bitcoin is the mother of pyramids” – sounds also somehow true as the ones who bought Bitcoins early now profit from those who come late. But what is a Pyramid Scheme?

“A pyramid scheme (commonly known as pyramid scams) is a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products or services. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly impossible, and most members are unable to profit; as such, pyramid schemes are unsustainable and often illegal.”

At least I’m not aware somebody recruits members in a multiplier scheme. And anybody can decide at any time to get buy or sell Bitcoins. Hence the comparison seems also to be misleading.

“Bitcoin is a bubble” – looking at the price evolution is 2017 suggests that this could be a bubble. But what is a bubble?

“A bubble is an economic cycle characterized by rapid escalation of asset prices followed by a contraction. It is created by a surge in asset prices unwarranted by the fundamentals of the asset and driven by exuberant market behavior. When no more investors are willing to buy at the elevated price, a massive selloff occurs, causing the bubble to deflate.”

Well, it is most likely some sort of a bubble – there will be price corrections and at some point in time Bitcoins will be super-seeded by a technology eliminating its constraints in terms of fairness, transaction rate and energy consumption.

“Bitcoin uses enormous amounts of energy” – this seems to be one of the concerns people love to make comparisons and also promote the idea that more transactions results in more energy consumption. Yes, it uses a lot of energy but this energy is what makes the network safe in the current proof of work- mining. An attacker would need to invest a substantial amount of these resources to destabilize the bitcoin network. The amount of energy used does however not correlate with the number transactions processed.

“Bitcoin is the new gold” – this seems to sound right when thinking about mining Bitcoins. There are the miners who produce gold and the limited supply makes gold valuable. The amount of natural gold on the planet is limited like the total amount of Bitcoins. But astro mining will change this for gold not too far in the future – experts talk about 20 years from now. Bitcoin’s mathematical foundation stays.

These points are properly summed up in Steve Wozniak’s statement “Bitcoin is mathematical. I am a mathematician. There are only 21 million. It is more legitimate than other systems”.

The following is a pretty good description:

  • It says that it is a limited resource currently slowly increasing day by day peaking at 21 million. So far, all resources which are limited and of interest, increased in value. While Bitcoin was rather unknown even 2 years ago it is now a hot topic in all media with people making harsh statements primarily defending their own interests.
  • Steve also calls it a system – there is neither a government nor a company with management nor an individual running Bitcoin. The system is very cleverly built – it is an amalgamation of many disciplines and was so far self-balancing gravitating towards a stable state where all the participants jointly benefit.

Maybe we add the following characteristics

  • The system is transparent – everybody can observe all transactions.
  • The system is democratic – everybody can use it or become a miner.
  • The system is self-balancing – no government or company decides its direction
  • The system is energy inefficient – a result of the proof of work mining approach
  • The system is not completely fair –  miners can prefer juicy transactions
  • The system is open – all technology is freely available

A hyperconnected digital economy needs inherently digital media of exchange. Bitcoin is most likely the first step into such a direction. It’s ten years history demonstrates that such a system is possible and triggered a whole new set of echnology innovations. Crypto currencies represent a fundamental upgrade to the economic systems of the world. Once they have matured and are integrated into the mesh economy, the world will look very, very different.

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Giving direction …

The world continously evolves and changing exponentially (see Change is inevitable ….). Not long ago the pace in companies was much slower. Propagation of information took time and the production of goods was typically labor intensive. The main challenge was organizing processes and workforce efficiently towards maximal outcome. These mechanisms which used to work well in the industrial age increasingly fail to produce beneficial effect in the information age.

Today’s environment routine work is automated and commoditised whereas engagement and creativity have become major assets of organizations. Great organizations have a shared goal, a state they want to reach. This reason d’etre has become more important than ever before. The vision is the mechanism to create a pull into one direction. A practical guide for creating plans, setting goals and objectives, making decisions, and coordinating and evaluating the work on any project, large or small. It is the source for motivation within the organization.

A vision captures clear and inspirational long-term desired change(s) resulting from an organization or program’s work. The vision is important – it expresses why the organization is required and provides guidance and direction to all who engage.

  • Alzheimer’s Association: A world without Alzheimer’s

It is obvious that the people engage here want to contribute to a world free of Alzheimer. They can do this however as they want as the vision does not say what has to be done. Everybody can contribute with his skills and abilities. People will have different perceptions on the importance of this organization,  but nobody will be against this vision.

You may now say that this is just a simple and straight forward special case. Indeed – it should all start with a ‘why?’ which leads to people sharing the idea forming an organization. The vision is what makes this organization special and different from others.

Below is a list of vision statements of some other organizations

  • We create the technology to connect the world
  • We believe in what people make possible
  • Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
  • To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online

You engage and be part of only if you agree with the vision . Shaping a vision is not easy – it requires creativity, setting standards and enforcing clear decisions. People may like it, dislike it or find it irrelevant.

Many incumbent companies in the financial sector started with a clear vision. Some of these goals were reached and the companies just continued to do what they are doing. They just repeat what they have done in a better and more efficient way. Without having a vision it becomes difficult to be innovative and cost efficiency starts to become the main goal.

As a little exercise look at the web pages from incumbent organizations in the financial services industry and try to find their vision statement. It’s interesting that only a subset of the companies have one.

  • XYZ’s vision is to be recognized as a leading manufacturer of protective materials for high reliability applications throughout the world.
  • XYZ’s main commitment is to provide its customers with the best solutions possible
These two examples sound really trivial and the vision can be used for most types of organizations. Or is there a company who does not want to be reliable or provide the best solutions? This lack of purpose is dangerous – as there are many organizations with the same aim there is no evident reason, why this specific one is really required.

This lack of a vision is also dangerous as the new organizations all have vision – typically not talking about themselves but about the state they want to reach.

  • We believe everyone should be able to enjoy a healthy financial life.
  • We’re building this bank for you. We’ll learn and adapt to you, celebrating your individuality in every way.
  • By solving your problems, treating you fairly and being totally transparent, we believe that we can make banking better.

Compare the examples – which one is more appealing? Where would you like to engage as an employee or become a client? The incumbents benefit from their history as people are quite slow in changing their habits. But “time to change” is not the factor we should rely on in this “game” as when change happens it will be instantaneous.

Many incumbents relax on the fact that they are today systemic relevant – but the system could change and the relevance vanish with it. It feels much better to have a clear vision of the future than to rely on the past.

So it’s time for many incumbent organizations in financial services to hit refresh …

 

FINthinker’s Predictions for 2018

2018 will bring …

2017 was an interesting year where many developments started to get real traction. Just think about blockchain, bitcoin and artificial intellgence.

2018 will be even more interesting and substantially more challenging.  A few predictions for 2018 are as follows:

There will be three core changes for financial services:

All three aspects levitates a shift towards a distributed decentralized financial system. This affects the core and challenges legacy status quo and its existence in the future.

In addition fueled by the increasing tokenization and availability of blockchain based systems there will be a shift towards

  • Mobile Payments
  • Holistic mobile wallets
  • Global Solutions

There will be no other options for incumbents to integrate into the evolving mesh than to provide API’s to access information and services and to start to rely on others to provide crucial information. Self contained and closed financial services companies as well as local solutions will increasingly face headwinds.

  • Open Banking / API’s
  • Global solutions

Last but not least – user interfaces will become much more natural and transparent. The users will be amplified with new sense and access to information supported by intelligent agents.

Regulators will start to come up to speed with the changes. They will find ways to agree with business changes but also ethical standards across borders acknowledging the global nature of digital eco systems. A big challenge will be on the very old tax systems which are not ready yet for the shaping economy.

  • Tax System

These changes are fundamental – there is a ongoing paradigm change where inherent distributed digital approaches start to outperform the automated legacy processes. There are two big dangers out there

Many of the current developments seem to turn time back and bring up systems again which were used in the past but difficult to apply as physical distance was a limiting factor. Digital changes this – the world becomes some sort of a global village. Have a look at Yap, The Island Of Stone Money  – the first productive blockchain system.

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Simplicity in a complex environment possible?

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In all of our sophistication(s), humans react to the world in simple ways as our ability to cope with its complexity is limited. Do we seek simple solutions that hide or ignore the complexity?

Human senses are constantly producing far more data than their brains can process. Our brains cope with complexity by identifying important features and filtering out unnecessary detail(s). An example such as on seeing that the space you enter has four walls, a floor and a ceiling, you know you have entered a room and usually ignore the details. As individuals we deal with complexity by removing or hiding it. Our mental schemes are one way of doing that. Habits are another.

We also simplify complex decision-making by using received wisdom (e.g. advice of others, conforming to the beliefs and attitudes of what we may be associated to).

Society has many ways of managing complexity, one common approach is “divide and rule” approach to management which leads to hierarchical division of large organisations. Hierarchical breakdown introduces its own issues as the need to define early what are the decisive factors. Although structural changes can take place but only of rather limited value. Such systems have a tendency to go for the local optimum in each branch (see “The first step is key…”).  Another approach is to define laws, rules, commercial standards which creates limits and restrictions.

New technologies are usually introduced to simplify our lives, but inevitably they have unexpected side effects on society. An example is the introduction of robotics/ labour-saving systems set off cascades of social change, such as the decline of the nuclear family. In addition instead of addressing and replacing the complex systems with more efficient adaptable ones, we add additional layers of complexity by keeping legacy systems and integrating them with the so-called new and simpler ones. On top of that there is a continuous addition of business process which makes consolidation almost impossible. It makes life simpler to rely on others to provide solutions to complex problems.

This inability to fathom complexity leads to a belief that any worthwhile solution to a situation must be simple. Any change introduces complexity into people’s lives. Rather than face issues that are complex, some retreat into denial, preferring to believe in a simpler future in which there is no change and continue with their paradigms.

In an era of post-truth and pseudoscience, avoid dismissing uncomfortable facts out of hand. Complexity arises from the richness of interconnections between things. Can we continue to ignore the wider context and the side effects of actions and ideas? The continuous adoption and extension of programs are vital to humans over time.

“Our brain is not to think – it is to keep us alive”

 

Next stop – FinTechGiants ?

Next stop – the collaboration and integration of FinTech and Tech Giants provisioning of classical banking services to their large user base?

FinTech in its broadest definition stands for technologies used and applied in the financial services sector. Progressively, FinTech has started to represent technologies that disrupts traditional financial services. There is a lot of debate about Fintech diminishing typically based on success criteria coming from incumbent companies. Let’s take an unfamiliar perspective and look at companies from a structural context. All companies can only choose to change in limited dimensions when adapting to the environment or when deciding to shape the future. Ultimately it is the users who decide if such changes are successful or even disruptive when they start to massively consume new services or products in preference over others.

Company Structure

Each company has three core dimensions available to implement change:

  • skills
  • organization
  • technology

The first dimension is skill(s) available to the company. The applied skills, not knowledge, are valued and becomes the decisive factor. Knowledge is increasingly easy to access while skills are hard and time consuming to build up. An example, chess – lots of people have an excellent knowledge about chess and its rules but only a few can play it exceptionally well. Gaining expert level skills requires time and practice. Many things will go wrong on the journey to mastership. The ambition and journey to become a master requires passion, persistence and an environment which allows to practice, fail and learn. These are essential to make progress.

The second dimension is the organization a company has composed. It defines how the individuals work together and apply their specific skills as a team. Many will immediately think about titles, positions and careers in a hierarchical structure. Within each organization there is not just one but three structures:

  •  a formal structure of power, required to perform business and ensure regulatory compliance
  •  an informal structure of social networks and communication paths
  •  a value creation structure which solves problems and produces the value for clients

Unfortunately, there is no choice and it exist in every company. The challenge of each company is to balance them in a clever way to create the maximal value for the clients, shareholders, employees and the society. Most companies focus on the formal structure, the hierarchy of power a paradigm left over from the industrial age. Employees compete in the company to make career and gain position power over other employees while the true competition of the company happens at the boundary where the interaction with the environment takes place. The value creation structure, where the income, but more importantly trust and reputation, built up for the company is not well understood.  The highly dynamic informal structure where influence takes place, is often underestimated or even ignored. The company’s culture is a result of the experiences the employees define in these structures.

The third dimension is technology – the available technology was always a decisive factor throughout human history. Now it has become essential, as the technical progress has exponentially increased. Today the need to unlearn outdated practices and learn new ways is challenging the workforce, especially the formal structure. The technology progress demands paradigm changes for things which worked well in the past leads to the opposite effect tomorrow.

The Tech Force

Now let’s revisit the term FinTech. It is an amalgamation of Financial Services and Technology. Financial Services companies have always used technology to improve service efficiency and convenience and will continue to do so. But many incumbents have the problem that they cannot focus on technology as a differentiator. They need to manage a landscape of accumulated technical organizations as they are not used to replacement ng the technology base regularly. The heterogeneous landscape binds a lot of resources and increases complication in an already complex business.  FinTech companies typically look at a few well selected value propositions and then seek for solutions using the best available technology. They may not yet feel competitive from a career and salary perspective, but offer fascinating challenges, the possibility to become a master in modern technology and to have impact in the industry. This makes them attractive for talents creating highly skilled teams and high degree of automation using modern infrastructure enabling an efficient and agile work style.

The is a significant difference between incumbents and Fintech companies in technology- the biggest difference being the organizational dimension.  Large incumbent organizations with a focus on complex formal and hierarchical structures were ideal for large labor-intensive projects which required the coordination and top-down management of big teams. The complicated landscapes forces incumbents towards centralization aiming for scale effects to achieve efficiency gains. But the future is likely to follow the structure of the internet – it is distributed, technology driven and an interconnected mesh of services. Building and running such services can be done by small teams which efficiently combine the skills to reach a shared vision. A network of smaller loosely coupled but interconnected units, each producing a specific value, fits better in such an environment than big, monolithic and complicated organizations. Such a network of self-contained units is also more flexible to adapt to the environment, to deal with complexity and to survive changes where some of its units may lose value and disappear.

Many of today’s highest valued companies – the so-called tech giants – have assumed an organization which leverages the combined power of the formal, informal and value structure by shifting focus to client value creation and offering space to cultivate the informal structure. These companies may lack the skills of financial services companies now – but they can build on a modern technology base, an extremely high degree of automation and a dynamic and empowered organizational culture. These companies also have immediate access to a vast number of users which may become clients of new service offerings.

The argument, that these companies do not want to become banks, is misleading. These companies have their customer in focus and will do what helps them to achieve their goals. They will not become banks in the classical sense but are integrating and offering financial services. When financial services are required by their customers they have or will apply for a banking license and its services are regulated like an incumbent bank. Their core focus is client value reach and each service are integrated and offerings are immediately widely available. The broad valued offerings and usage results in accumulation of valuable data insights which can be directly using to evolve their business – an example considering a platform company running shops and logistics for clients’ companies. It has deep insights and can grant credits in a much leaner and efficient way. It can choose the most promising client companies and leave the others to the wider market. If the client company grows, it benefits participating in the success of the shop and its logistics.

Conclusion

Financial services incumbents will need to perform a significant step change in more than one dimension to adapt to the new normal. A difficult transformation for status quo environments of those who currently have the power and are the ones who fear to lose most. An alternative to consider is the collaboration and integration of FinTech and Tech Giants provisioning of classical banking services to their large user base. Clients may be used to attaining certain services from companies today – but this can change very fast at any moment.

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