Fintech

Representative image The Indian fintech ecosystem is perhaps the most unique in the world, with hyperscale payment infrastructure, thriving lending innovations, digitally savvy banks, and market-driven open-banking frameworks. This has helped the country achieve a scale of unheard levels — 71 billion digital payment transactions, Rs 11.8 trillion lent to retail and SME customers, and 55 million active neobank (online bank) accounts. The Indian fintech ecosystem has broken the barriers of language, location, and illiteracy. Fintech firms have helped onboard new-to-credit as well as sub-prime customers. Jan Dhan and neobanking are helping ensure that every citizen has access to banking. A case in point is the high penetration of UPI. Earlier, Indian fintech would imitate developments abroad, but now the reverse has begun. With a focus on speed, cost, and scalability, homegrown innovations like UPI, the India stack, and lending frameworks have become global benchmarks. Indian … [Read more...] about The Indian fintech ecosystem is setting global benchmarks

Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon speaks during a press conference. [NAVER] Naver will launch its own version of ChatGPT in the Korean market in the first half of this year to respond to the widely popular chatbot system, the company announced Friday. The announcement follows weaker-than-expected financial results for 2022. Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said during a conference call that the operator of the country’s largest search portal will introduce its “SearchGPT” that specializes in queries in Korean. “We will respond to the new trend of generative AI,” Choi said, “We will solve the weaknesses of ChatGPT such as its low reliability, shortage of up-to-date information and lower accuracy when translating from English into Korean,” Choi said. Short for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, ChatGPT is a free chatbot system capable of generating conversational dialogue and human-like text such as articles and summaries. Developed by OpenAI, a San Francisco, California-based company, … [Read more...] about Naver to launch competitor to ChatGPT

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Nagaraju Bandaru is CTO for Mosaic , a leading financing platform for U.S. residential solar and energy-efficient home improvements. With the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the U.S. government is expecting a boom in clean energy jobs . And according to a recent survey conducted by Mosaic, 75% of American adults said they would consider a job in clean energy. While it’s true that sustainable infrastructure initiatives like the IRA are contributing to the growth of this industry, since becoming the CTO of clean energy fintech, I have experienced a much deeper appeal that clean tech jobs hold. This new perspective has changed the way I think about work, so I wanted to share the top five things I have learned since moving into clean tech. 1. Work With Joy According to the old cliche, if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. But I would take that a step further and … [Read more...] about Five Things I’ve Learned As A CTO Of A Clean Tech Company

Chinese fintech major Ant Group’s nominee to Paytm’s board , Douglas Feagin, has resigned as  non-executive, non-independent director of the company, according to a regulatory filing. Ant is an affiliate company of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which sold $125 million of shares in Paytm last month. Both Alibaba and Ant cumulatively still hold around 28 percent stake in Paytm. “Paytm’s journey to achieving profitable financial services of scale in India has been inspiring. In recognition of the company’s growth as a publicly listed company and the maturity of the business, at the request of the nominating shareholder, I hereby resign from my position as a director on the Board of Directors of Paytm,” the regulatory filing quoted Feagin as saying. In 2015, Alibaba and Ant Financial had become the largest shareholders in Paytm when they invested $680 million for over 44 percent equity stake in the company. Alibaba was never a strategic shareholder for Paytm , the … [Read more...] about Ant Group nominee on Paytm board of directors resigns

College students who struggle to afford their required books each year now have another funding option: a buy now, pay later service called Sezzle. Sezzle, a fintech firm, has partnered with the Independent College Bookstore Association to launch its payment option amid the rising cost of college books and other college expenses. Offered at 230 college stores in the U.S. and Cananda, Sezzle allows students to make purchases, including books, school supplies and gear, and then pay them off over time in four installments. Essentially, as a buy now, pay later service, it allows the consumer a payment option that works similarly to a credit card, but with no interest charges. “No student should ever lose out on educational opportunities because they’re worried about the ability to pay at the time of service,” Sezzle CEO Charlie Youakim said in statement. The high cost of college textbooks can negatively impact a students finances and ability to get an education. To afford … [Read more...] about New Buy Now, Pay Later Service Targets College Books

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin In a letter to the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL), Chair of the AI Task Force and Congressional Blockchain Caucus Co-Chair, along with Congressman French Hill (R-AR), Ranking Member on the AI and Fintech Task Force sent a letter this week to the Federal Reserve asking to start looking at a U.S. Dollar Digital Currency. Former Chair of the FDIC, Sheila Bair, has been talking about this issue for some time. Since she was ahead of the curve in calling the Global Financial Crisis with her concern on subprime mortgages, it makes sense that we start listening to her on her latest concern for the U.S. At the Senate Hearing last week on September 25 called “Facilitating Faster Payments in the U.S.”, the former Chair of the FDIC, Sheila Bair, was asked by Senator Cortez Masto (D-NV) why in her testimony she recommended the Fed look into central bank digital currencies, including cryptocurrencies run on … [Read more...] about As Congress Asks The Fed To Look Into A Digital Dollar, Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair Is Ahead Of The Curve … Again

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Millennials make up the biggest generation in existence. What they do has the power to influence what groups before and after them do. And they do things differently. In fact, research suggests that they’re the first generation to “influence up.” Representing the large majority of the labor force and touted as the most powerful consumers, millennials have been at the helm of most modern-day revolutions. From reforming corporate culture and shaping today’s workplaces to recasting the American family and pioneering the technology that drives our everyday lives. Technology that instantly delivers on our demands. (Read: Pick-up-drop-off wash-and-fold at the tap of a button—because the laundromats still require coins. And who keeps coins unless they’re digital and called crypto?) ADVERTISEMENT A wealth of research suggests that, simply put, millennials are self-starters. Most aspire to be entrepreneurs or … [Read more...] about How AI-Powered Investing Is Changing Wall Street For Millennials