Top 50 Fintechs Grow 169% in 5 Years, Bank Branches Plummet: Essential Banking News

Top 50 Fintech Firms Growing At Nearly 3X the Pace of Top 50 Banks

In their report 'State of the Financial Services Industry 2017,' Oliver Wyman shows that the valuation of fintech firms have exploded in unprecedented ways, signaling that the shift to digital is more urgent than ever. 

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The Number of Bank Branches Plummets

The Economist shows that financial institutions have closed more than 10,000 branches since the financial crisis. This places strain on account holders who live far from cities and further shows the importance of having a solid digital offering.

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FI Navigator: Banks that offer PFM have twice the enrollment in mobile banking

'FI Navigator shows that financial institutions that offer PFM have twicethe enrollment in mobile banking. ... [FI Navigator also] shows that PFM offers a stronger lift to mobile banking enrollment than other major features such as bill pay, mobile deposit, fingerprint authentication, and P2P payments.'

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Fintech forces the fate of U.S. financials

“Established corporations with large branch and sales networks have been challenged, as technology changes the way people use their products. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, for example, are all reporting double-digit annual growth rates in the take-up of mobile banking services.”

Read more at Lexology

How Two Brothers Turned Seven Lines of Code Into a $9.2 Billion Startup

“[Stripe] handles tens of billions of dollars in internet transactions annually, making money by charging a small fee on each one. Half of Americans who bought something online in the past year did so, probably unknowingly, via Stripe. This has given it a $9.2 billion valuation, several times larger than those of its nearest competitors, and made Patrick, 28, and John, 26, two of the world’s youngest billionaires.”

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Technology pushes the Open Banking dream forward

“To master and manage this new process, banks and Financial Services organizations need to focus on the customer above anything else. Only organizations that will manage to quickly create a reliable partner ecosystem with the customer at its centre will be able to reap the spoils of this new revenue stream.”

Read more at IT ProPortal

Bitcoin cash is crashing

“Bitcoin cash, the new alternative cryptocurrency, is crashing. Bitcoin cash has dropped 33% to $290 a coin over the last 24 hours, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com. That's down from its all-time high of $727 set on Wednesday, a day after its debut.”

Read more at Business Insider

Advanced Analytics And The Future of Digital Lending

“To be a digital lender, banks and credit unions must do more than provide a digital app. Internal lending processes must be transformed to eliminate friction and unneeded steps, with advanced analytics supporting proactive loan decisions.”

Read more at The Financial Brand

Too Many Fintechs, Too Little Time for OCC

“The Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which held office hours through its Office of Innovation in New York last week, might be in over its head. The office received a large volume of meeting requests, but could conduct meetings with only a fraction of those applicants.”

Read more at Bank Innovation

Big banks are going after Venmo and Venmo is winning

“Paper cash started replacing precious metals many, many centuries ago. However, it took PayPal’s Venmo (PYPL) just eight years to supplant cash for millions of people—largely millennials—looking to pay each other for things or split a restaurant tab.”

Read more at Yahoo Finance