Three regional fintech winners unveiled at Citi Tech for Integrity Challenge in Dublin
Citi has unveiled three winners from its regional Tech for Integrity Challenge (T4I) Demo Day held in Dublin last week, garlanding Aid:Tech, Paycode and Pole Star with the T4I Award for innovation. The global program aims to promote accountability and transparency in the public sector and beyond by supporting the effective use of financial technology (fintech) solutions and monitoring technology. It is run by Citi’s internal fintech team, treasury and trade unit, and Citi Ventures, its technology accelerator, investment and collaboration arm. Facebook, IBM, MasterCard, Microsoft and PwC are some of the other partners involved in judging the competition. The idea is to support small start-up companies’ applications on beneficiary […]
FSDC urges Hong Kong government to set up fintech office, focus on blockchain
The Hong Kong government should set up a financial technology (fintech) office to better coordinate the city’s efforts in becoming a hub for developments such as blockchain and insurance technology, according to an advisory body. The Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) on Tuesday released a research report suggesting that Hong Kong narrow its focus to five areas within fintech in order to catch up with cities like Dubai and Singapore and to cement its position as a fintech hub in the region. The five areas are cybersecurity, payments and securities settlements, digital identification for KYC (know your client), wealthtech and insurance technology, as well as regulatory technology, with the latter […]
Lockheed Martin bets on blockchain for cybersecurity
Lockheed Martin has contracted Guardtime Federal to provide blockchain cyber security, the defense company announced in a blog post. It’s the first US defense contractor to adopt blockchain as part of its security approach and Lockheed Martin says the partnership will allow it to “realize more efficient and secure software development and supply chain risk management.” A blockchain is a type of secure database that maintains a constantly expanding list of records. Each record, or block, contains a link to a previous block. This makes them inherently resistant to modification by outside sources. “These new cyber security approaches will enhance data integrity, speed problem discovery and mitigation,” said Ron Bessire, […]
Humaniq to use blockchain for social good
A London/Luxembourg start-up is planning to use the blockchain to create a new kind of bank that will help tackle global poverty. It will enable people to use its cryptocurrency to donate or lend money, and bring banking services and income generation opportunities to “the last billion”. Humaniq has been developed by a group of people, many with experience in cryptocurrencies, who have seen the potential of biometrics, blockchain and mobile to help solve a number of social and economic problems. The challenge they aim to tackle is considerable. “Over 2 billion people in the world don’t have bank accounts. About 1.5 billion people don’t have any identification documents. They […]
Can Hong Kong compete with Singapore as fintech hub?
Singapore is widely held to be Asia’s premier fintech hub, but experts in Hong Kong are confident that the city can catch up. In a recent study by Deloitte, London and Singapore were found to perform highest as fintech hubs, followed by New York and Silicon Valley. Hong Kong was found to be the sixth most competitive jurisdiction for producing fintech companies and solutions. At GTR’s Asia Trade & Supply Chain Finance Conference 2017 in Hong Kong today, however, fintech dominated the conversation, as a whole roster of banks, companies and individuals queued up to sing the Special Administrative Region of China’s virtues as a centre for development. “I think […]
Blockchain startup Factom raises $8 million in extended Series A
Blockchain startup Factom has finished raising just over $8m as part of an extended Series A round. Last October, the firm said that it had raised $4.2m as part of the funding in an effort to raise capital ahead of planned product launches. Taking part in the round, according to AustinInno, include Harvest Equity and Peeli Ventures, along with several as-yet-unnamed local investors. According to public records from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Factom raised approximately $8,027,535 during the round. Previously, the firm – which uses its own blockchain network to verify the the integrity of data – had raised $1.1m in a crowdsale conducted in mid-2015, before going […]
Total Market Cap of Digital Currencies nears $30 Billion
Digital currencies reached a new high today, surpassing $28 billion, a more than doubling from their previous all-time high of around $12 billion back in 2013. Indicating an increasing interest in digital currencies and the wider blockchain space. The main driver is, of course, bitcoin, which is nearing $20 billion once more after rising for much of the week from around $1,000 to approximately $1,200. The currency, however, has lost market share, falling below 70%, as other coins gain attention. At first it was monero after being added to some drug markets, then dash suddenly and puzzlingly incredibly shoot up above $100, but now has nearly halved, standing around $60 […]
The impact of Blockchain on Trade Finance and Cybersecurity
Companies in today’s ‘digital first’ ecosystem are being forced to continuously innovate in order to stay at the forefront and remain competitive in their industry, particularly in the financial services and financial technology space. Blockchain technology is already starting to reinvent the infrastructure for global finance; anything that facilitates the frictionless flow of money. Yet blockchain is frequently associated with fraudulent ponzi schemes and trading scams. Blockchain technology sits on a consensus-driven distributed ledger that facilitates and keeps a record of all historic transactions, without the need of a third party – a concept which could revolutionise global trade, and challenge the existence and purpose of intermediaries such as commercial […]
