FinovateEurope Talks: Founders’ Stories

https://finovate.com/finovateeurope-talks-founders-stories/

We see founders from across all fintech sectors at every Finovate event, and FinovateEurope 2023 was no different. At last month’s event, we gave five fintech founders a microphone to answer five questions.

In the four-minute video below, you’ll hear from Katalin Kauzli, Co-Founder and Business Development Director of Partner Hub; Gonzalo de la Peña, Founder and Chief Business Development Officer at Openfinance; Alexander Lempka, Co-Founder and CEO at Connect Earth; Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO at AZA Finance; and Anandhi Dhukaram, CEO and Founder at Esdha.

Each of these experts talks about their struggles, advice for running a company, what they wish they knew sooner, and who they could not operate without.


Photo by Suzy Hazelwood

https://finovate.com/finovateeurope-talks-founders-stories/

First Republic plunges on expectation of seizure by FDIC

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/retail/first-republic-plunges-on-expectation-of-seizure-by-fdic/

First Republic Bank shares fell as much as 54% in extended New York trading on speculation that it would be seized by regulators, as regional US lenders are pressured by deposit drains and weakening investments. Regulators were poised to place the San Francisco-based lender into receivership, Reuters reported late Friday, citing a person it didn’t […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/retail/first-republic-plunges-on-expectation-of-seizure-by-fdic/

Making Financial Literacy Fun: A Conversation with Finotta Founder and CEO Parker Graham

https://finovate.com/making-financial-literacy-fun-a-conversation-with-finotta-founder-and-ceo-parker-graham/

As Financial Literacy Month draws to a close, we reached out to Parker Graham, founder and CEO of Finotta. We wanted to hear his thoughts on what it means to be financially literate at a time of major digital transformation and technological change – both in financial services and in the world writ large.

Finotta enables banks and credit unions to personalize their mobile banking experiences for their customers. Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, and founded in 2018, Finotta helps smaller financial organizations generate new revenue streams, boost user engagement, and compete with larger financial institutions.

Finotta made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall.

What does it mean to be financially literate in 2023?

Parker Graham: For many people, managing their finances and staying financially literate is not just a challenge – it feels harder than ever.

With decades-high inflation and historic interest rate hikes, consumers are feeling the heat.  Most workers reported that any salary gains they’ve received in the last year have been outpaced by inflation.  We’re really seeing this hit young people hard. Half of Gen Z and Millennials are living paycheck to paycheck.

Many consumers don’t know what steps to take to get ahead. And with traditional digital banking channels lacking that personalized experience, they aren’t getting the advice they need. Banks and credit unions must prioritize financial education for their customers because they can’t afford to be left behind.

In today’s world, is digital literacy required in order to be financially literate?

Graham: Digital literacy is a huge challenge we’re facing in the banking industry. More than 15 million people are not digitally literate. Consumers should not have to know how to bank online to make good financial choices.

To tackle this, banks should ensure that customer experience is at the forefront of all of their technology decisions.  Banking apps need to be easy to read, quick to navigate, and intuitive – even for individuals who are not digital natives.  This is exactly why we work directly with users when building our technology at Finotta to make sure it is easily accessible, navigable, and understandable.

Banking tech also must go the extra mile and make it personal by providing Personalized Financial Guidance (PFG) to customers. This guides consumers through their financial journey, no matter where they are, by offering tailored advice on how to meet their financial goals.

How can we make sure technology is an enabler of financial literacy rather than an obstacle to it?

Graham: Banks have to remember that acquiring a new digital banking solution isn’t just about technology for the sake of seeming flashy or modern. A banking app can actually help with financial literacy by taking the guesswork out of what customers should do with their money.

Your banking app needs to deliver the right experience, service, or product to the customer based on their individual data. Then, it should offer users concrete suggestions, like opening a new savings account for college tuition, that help them achieve financially healthy lives. The cherry on top is offering in-app rewards, like badges and milestones, that recognize customers for their positive choices and make financial literacy fun.

How does personalization in digital banking help foster financial literacy? How can fintechs help digital banking customers turn insights into action?

Graham: Consumers are looking for financial guidance beyond typical personal financial management tools, which do nothing more than provide fancy pie charts that show a customer’s spending. 

From a consumer’s perspective, getting alerts in their banking app that tell them how much money they spent at Starbucks over the last month (when that money could have gone towards a 401K instead) does nothing more than shame them. It’s essentially saying, “Hey, you’re in a hole.”

Instead, banks can take consumer data one step further by helping them take actionable steps to reach their goals – like setting up monthly direct deposits to save towards retirement.  A bank using a personalized approach can say, “Hey, we see you’re in a hole, and here’s how you can get out.”

Finotta made its Finovate debut last year at FinovateFall. What was that experience like?

Graham: Debuting our technology last year at FinovateFall was incredible. It gave us an opportunity to tell the story of how powerful and impactful our platform is in a room of our customers and peers.

What can we look forward to hearing about from Finotta in the coming months?

Graham: The next few months for us are going to be about scaling with more and more customers. It’s been a journey building our software and now we are focused on replicating our successes with as many financial institutions as possible.


Photo by Taylor Hunt

https://finovate.com/making-financial-literacy-fun-a-conversation-with-finotta-founder-and-ceo-parker-graham/

AWS customers optimize cloud spend in Q1

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/aws-customers-optimize-cloud-spend-in-q1/

Amazon Web Services customers looked to cost savings within their cloud spending amid economic turbulence in the first quarter. “Our AWS sales and support teams continue to spend much of their time helping customers optimize their AWS spend so that they can better weather this uncertain economy,” Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said Thursday during […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/aws-customers-optimize-cloud-spend-in-q1/

SVB, Fed guilty of poor management

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/risk-security/svb-fed-guilty-of-poor-management-of-the-failed-bank/

Silicon Valley Bank and federal regulators alike let poor management slide for several years — leading to the largest banking failure since 2008. SVB lacked board effectiveness, risk management and internal audits within its operations, and had 31 outstanding supervisory warnings when the bank collapsed in March. Similarly, the Fed failed to follow up on […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/risk-security/svb-fed-guilty-of-poor-management-of-the-failed-bank/

Capital One invests in ML during Q1

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/retail/capital-one-invests-in-ml-during-q1/

Capital One looked to technology to help navigate economic uncertainty as it invested in machine learning during the first quarter.  The $471 billion bank saw a 3% year-over-year increase in communications and data processing to $350 million as the bank used machine learning (ML) to assist in making business decisions based on market sentiment, Capital […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/retail/capital-one-invests-in-ml-during-q1/

Digital Banking Solutions Company Tyfone Raises Capital and Announces Merger

https://finovate.com/digital-banking-solutions-company-tyfone-raises-capital-and-announces-merger/
  • Digital banking solutions company Tyfone has secured a “significant investment” from Demopolis Equity Partners.
  • The Portland, Oregon-based company also announced a merger with digital banking provider Cubus Solutions.
  • Tyfone made its Finovate debut in 2008 at FinovateSpring.

Digital banking solutions company Tyfone hit the fintech headlines with a pair of big announcements in recent days. First, the company has received a significant investment from Demopolis Equity Partners. The amount of the funding was not disclosed.

Tyfone is also announcing that it has merged with digital banking provider Cubus Solutions. The two companies will move forward under the Tyfone brand. The investment and merger are designed to help accelerate the adoption of Tyfone’s nFinia digital banking platform. The addition of Cubus’ customers, digital solutions, and expertise will help the combined entity better serve financial institutions, helping them boost revenues and efficiency.

“Today success in digital banking – in fact, success in any financial technology – is all about engaged digital experiences and the ability to scale,” Tyfone CEO Dr. Siva Narendra said. “That means scaling up to power digital growth for larger institutions and scaling down to facilitate the smaller ones (to) stay relevant.”

Cubus CEO John-Ashley Paul added: “It is rare to find two companies so culturally well-aligned that also complement each other technologically. Our best-of-breed loan payments, loan skips, e-statements, and rewards solutions will extend the Tyfone digital banking ecosystem, leading to tighter integration and a truly exceptional user experience.”

Tyfone demoed its technology at FinovateSpring in 2008. In the years since, the Portland, Oregon-based company has grown into a provider of market-leading software for credit unions and community banks. This year, Tyfone has announced partnerships with Southwest Financial, a Texas based financial institution with 9,200 members and $81 million in assets; and with Members Advantage Credit Union, a credit union based in Wisconsin Rapids with 11,000 members and $178 million in assets.


Photo by Ruvim Miksanskiy

https://finovate.com/digital-banking-solutions-company-tyfone-raises-capital-and-announces-merger/

FIS sees uptick in bank solutions demand post-SVB

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/fis-sees-uptick-in-bank-solutions-demand-post-svb/

FIS posted an uptick in its banking solutions demand in the first quarter following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.   The financial services technology provider remains committed to banking services through turbulent or uncertain times, Chief Executive Stephanie Ferris said during Thursday’s earnings call. “As banks go through whatever volatility they’re dealing with, [FIS […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/fis-sees-uptick-in-bank-solutions-demand-post-svb/

Banks prioritize tech spend in Q1

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/retail/banksprioritizetechspendinq1/

Tech spend remained strong overall in the first quarter as the industry prepped for an economic downturn, and turbulence swept the banking world amid the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The $132 billion Discover Financial Services increased its technology and consulting expenses 31% year-over-year in Q1 to $232 million, according to the […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/retail/banksprioritizetechspendinq1/

Q&A with Lee Wetherington, senior director of corporate strategy at Jack Henry

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/qa-with-lee-wetherington-senior-director-of-corporate-strategy-at-jack-henry/

Core provider Jack Henry is looking to technology to address changes in today’s payments landscape and client concerns following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank while preparing to launch new solutions to address cyberthreats in the financial services industry.

Bank Automation News sat down with Lee Wetherington, senior director of corporate strategy at Jack Henry to discuss the tech provider’s clients’ needs, prepping clients for FedNow and new products in 2023. What follows is an edited version of that conversation.

Bank Automation News: What are bank clients focused on following the collapse of SVB?

Lee Wetherington: The collapse of SVB accelerated deposit churn that started in December of 2022, leading to a demand for stronger deposit relationships post-SVB. According to Jack Henry’s 2023 benchmark survey of chief executive officers, growing deposits is now the top strategic priority for banks.

The best deposit strategies are targeted, tiered, segmented and strategic. Smart banks know which segments of their deposit base are most at-risk for churn and flight. They’ve been proactive in reaching out to depositors who are disproportionately significant to the bank’s liquidity. Progressive banks also offer automated savings and investment options that make deposit relationships sticky and accretive.

The most successful banks are those who not only price deposits strategically but also get creative with the old tools of CDs and savings accounts and, for example, offer re-financing of CDs mid-term or create hybrid bundles that balance the bank’s need for liquidity and low cost of funds with the customer’s desire for better rates.

Even before SVB, banks looking to shore up deposit gaps among Gen Y and Gen Z were offering mobile-only account opening that doesn’t force account funding upfront, as well as early-paycheck access that has become a staple among neobanks like Chime. More banks are now following suit.

BAN: What tools should banks have in place to enable seamless integration with necessary fintech partners, including those in payments?

LW: Banks have to be effective matchmakers between their customers and the most relevant fintechs. They have to be really good and efficient at identifying, vetting, integrating and embedding fintechs of choice into their digital experiences in meaningful time frames. That means banks must have open digital platforms with well-documented, self-serve APIs that fintechs can consume easily.

According to the 2023 Strategic Priorities Benchmark survey, 90% of financial institutions plan to embed fintechs into their digital experiences over the next two years, and 63% of banks plan to embed payments fintechs specifically.

Given the growing headwinds that payments fintechs face in terms of tightened access to venture capital, slowing growth rates in ecommerce and growing regulatory scrutiny, Forrester predicts that one in every four payments fintechs will fail this year. This means banks must take extra care in vetting payments-related fintech partners in 2023.

Broadly speaking, payments are growing in complexity and fragmenting the number of ways in which people pay and get paid. Small- and medium-size businesses must be able to accept payments across a growing and complex array of payment rails, tender types and digital wallets. Many businesses must now accept between nine and 12 different payment types.

Successful banks will abstract away the growing complexity of payments and make it really simple and easy for businesses of any size to accept payments from anybody anywhere in the world. Universal payments acceptance will be critical for businesses’ cash flow, especially if an economic downturn materializes this year. Open-loop approaches to payments, especially P2P, will also gain traction.

BAN: How does FedNow change the payments game?

LW: For the first time in 50 years, you have a new public instant payments rail coming online. FedNow is going to inaugurate a new era of innovation around new payment use cases and reimagined older use cases on those FedNow rails. If you are a bank and you are not looking intently at signing up and being at least a receiver of FedNow payments, you must think about how that will affect your ability to accept deposits. This year, payments strategy is also deposit strategy. According to our latest research, 60% of banks plan to add FedNow as a payments service.

BAN: How can banks lean into a changing payments system?

LW: The average smartphone in the U.S. has 14 financial apps on it, including payments apps like CashApp, PayPal and Venmo. Changes in the tech stack underneath banking over the last 15 years brought us things like banking-as-a-service (BaaS) and payments-as-a-service (PaaS). PaaS is why you can get payments services from all kinds of different entities, with and without bank charters. This ecosystem disruption has created widespread financial fragmentation for consumers and makes it difficult for them to understand where they are with their money. The average American now uses between 15 and 20 different financial service providers.

While it’s delusional to think banks can stop customers from using all of those other apps and providers, banks can use open-banking APIs and rails to aggregate a complete picture of the customer’s finances back at the bank. This secures first-app status for the bank and gives customers the financial confidence to act on next-best product and service recommendations. This is one of the most powerful ways banks can use technology to capitalize on a systemic challenge and turn a headwind into a tailwind this year.

Nearly 30% of banks are also planning to offer PaaS over the next two years. They’re planning to embed their payments capabilities into non-bank third parties. This is another way banks can lean in and monetize their charter and expand their payments franchise.

BAN: What is Jack Henry working on launching in 2023?

LW: We’re really excited about the launch of two new next-gen, cloud-native solutions: Banno Business, our new cash management solution designed to eliminate business email compromise (BEC); and Financial Crimes Defender, a real-time AI and machine learning-fortified platform that provides visibility into fraud across all channels.

Every bank and fintech in the country has experienced more fraud in the last 12 months than they’ve ever experienced historically. A big part of the problem is the prevalence of screen scraping in our industry — which makes it very difficult for banks to distinguish valid login attempts from fraudulent ones, leaving systems vulnerable to credential-stuffing attacks and other cyberthreats that continue to plague the industry at large.

This is why the CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] is scrutinizing screen scraping and proposing new open banking rules later this year. The good news is that banks can replace inbound screen scraping with API-based open banking rails and ultimately eliminate credential sharing altogether.

At Jack Henry, we continue to phase out inbound screen scraping on our Banno Digital Platform and replace it with direct API connections to five of the biggest financial data exchange platforms. In fact, we’ve already eliminated screen scraping from hundreds of thousands of apps across millions of accountholders, and we will complete that process on Banno by the end of this summer.

Eliminating credential sharing is an important milestone for the industry and will inaugurate a new and more secure era of financial data exchange. Unlike the indiscriminate data extraction performed by screen scraping, open-API aggregation allows accountholders to specify, minimize and fully control their data and how it’s shared with third-party providers — including the ability to grant or revoke data permissions within their primary bank’s digital banking experience. It bolsters trust in the bank and improves financial security for the customer. It’s the right thing to do, and we’re excited to be leading that effort.

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/qa-with-lee-wetherington-senior-director-of-corporate-strategy-at-jack-henry/

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: AI Squared

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-ai-squared/

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 23 and 24. Register today and save your spot.

AI Squared has created an AI integration platform designed to reduce AI/ML integration time from eight or more months to just eight hours.

Features

  • Includes reverse ETL for ML
  • Delivers a lightweight browser extension
  • Provides data/model governance

Presenters

Benjamin Harvey, CEO
Dr. Harvey is the former Chief of Operations Data Science at the NSA and early Solutions Architect at Databricks.
LinkedIn

Michelle Bonat, CTO
Bonat joined AI Squared in January 2023 after serving as the CTO of JP Morgan Chase.
LinkedIn

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-ai-squared/

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: 9Spokes

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-9spokes/

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 23 and 24. Register today and save your spot.

9Spokes unlocks the potential of open data and open banking by collecting consented data from businesses to give financial institutions a powerful set of tools to engage their business customers.

Features

  • Cashflow – plan, project and manage cash position
  • Banking – analyze spending habits and trends
  • Business Apps – provides a streamlined business management experience using key business apps

Why it’s great

The 9Spokes toolset makes the financial institution the center of their business customers’ daily financial lives – driving customer engagement, cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.

Presenters

Tom Baran, Head of Partnerships
Baran has been a growth agent and business development leader concentrating within technology and SaaS verticals. He oversees the product-partnership ecosystem for 9Spokes.
LinkedIn

Jake Downey, Director, North America
Downey brings over 15 years of financial services and fintech experience to 9Spokes. A business development and marketing professional, he has worked with some of the largest North American banks.
LinkedIn

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-9spokes/

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Merlin Investor

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-merlin-investor/

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 23 and 24. Register today and save your spot.

Merlin Investor offers a multi-asset educational, strategizing and tracking tool complementary to any trading platform and designed for any kind of investor.

Features

  • Access different market data and sentiment all in one place
  • Create, analyze, compare and backtest an infinite set of investment strategies
  • Track portfolio performance

Why it’s great

The Merlin platform allows financial institutions to attract and retain customers throughout the entire investment process and not just during the execution of trades.

Presenter

Guido Petrelli, Founder & CEO
Before starting Merlin Investor, Petrelli was the CFO and COO of a multinational company operating in the automotive sector for almost 15 years.
LinkedIn

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-merlin-investor/

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: The Lazu Group

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-the-lazu-group/

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 23 and 24. Register today and save your spot.

The Lazu Group’s CULTURL Heritage Calendar offers insights into the history and significance of holidays across many different cultures, helping companies educate and communicate in a multicultural workplace.

Features

  • Provides a wealth of resources designed to support internal inclusion
  • Includes 80 holidays, commemorations, and cultural heritage months
  • Offers 13 toolkits to guide organizations in the creation of diverse content

Why it’s great

The CULTURL Heritage Calendar offers ideas and resources for creating timely content and communication to promote empathy, curiosity and dialogue around the significance of cross-cultural moments.

Presenter

Malia Lazu, Founder & CEO
Lazu is an award-winning, tenured strategist in diversity & inclusion who has sparked deep economic development and investment in urban entrepreneurship for more than twenty years.
LinkedIn

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-the-lazu-group/

FinovateSpring 2023 Sneak Peek: Prelim

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-prelim/

A look at the companies demoing at FinovateSpring in San Francisco on May 23 and 24. Register today and save your spot.

Prelim is a white-labeled platform that helps banks digitize business banking. With core integrations and out-of-the-box AML/BSA solutions, they power automation by connecting with any system via API.

Features

  • Automate business account onboarding with a few clicks
  • Connect to external providers, including cores, to satisfy AML/BSA/CIP requirements
  • Launch products and services without re-keying data

Why it’s great

Prelim offers a core integrated business account onboarding solution that allows users to launch other banking products (i.e., treasury & merchant services, lending, etc.).

Presenters

Heang Chan, Co-Founder & CEO
Prior to founding Prelim, Chan was a Product Expert for Blend.
LinkedIn

Sam Kim, SVP, Head of Banking Platform
Before joining Prelim, Sam Kim worked for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and Enterprise.
LinkedIn

https://finovate.com/finovatespring-2023-sneak-peek-prelim/

Google invests in AI, cloud in Q1

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/google-invests-in-ai-cloud-in-q1/

Google focused on three areas of AI in the first quarter: developing large language models, empowering developers with Google tools and enabling organizations to benefit from AI advancements. The tech giant specifically invested in its AI advances for its cloud customers as Google Cloud revenue soared year over year, Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said Tuesday […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/google-invests-in-ai-cloud-in-q1/

Splitit Launches SplititExpress to Enable Checkout in Under 2-Seconds

https://finovate.com/__trashed/
  • Splitit is launching a new white-labeled payment offering called SplititExpress.
  • The new tool supports installment payments via GPay and ApplePay, and helps customers check out in under two seconds.
  • The merchant-branded checkout experience eliminates the typical visual clutter of online checkout interfaces by removing logos.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) company SplitIt is launching a new white-labeled payment offering called SplititExpress. The new tool enables companies to facilitate a checkout process that takes fewer than two seconds while also supporting installment payments via GPay and ApplePay.

SplititExpress allows for a merchant-branded experience that eliminates the visual clutter by removing multiple logos and checkout options. It also empowers businesses by giving them full ownership of their customers’ journey and first-party data.

Splitit’s Installments-as-a-Service product is a BNPL tool that leverages Checkout.com’s payment-acquiring capabilities to enable consumers to pay for a good or a service in installments, interest-free. The Installments-as-a-Servce tool differentiates itself from traditional BNPL offerings, however, because it is completely white-labeled and offers customers a merchant-branded experience. Because of this, during the checkout flow, customers are not redirected to a third party. What’s more, because Splitit relies on a consumer’s existing credit card, the company does not require additional credit checks. All of this results in less friction for the customer and better control over customer relationships for the merchant.

“Reducing technical uplift for our Merchants is always top of mind at Splitit, that’s why SplititExpress can be embedded into their checkouts by simply adding a few lines of code,” said Splitit Chief Technology Officer Ran Landau. “The result is an end-to-end process that takes less than 2-seconds for a consumer to pay with installments, compared to the average 1 to 2-minutes that even the fastest legacy BNPL’s offer.”

SplititExpress also enables merchants to add their own branding and messaging, and choose the repayment option that best suits their customers. By helping merchants customize these details of the payments experience, SplitIt anticipates it will help improve the overall user experience during the checkout process.

 Founded in 2012 as PayItSimple, Splitit is based in Atlanta with offices in London and Australia, as well as an R&D center in Israel. The company is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) under ticker code SPT and also trades on the US OTCQX under tickers SPTTY and STTTF. In recent years, Splitit has partnered with Stripe, Shopify, and Alipay to act as an Installments-as-a-Service option for their merchant clients.


Photo by Monstera

https://finovate.com/__trashed/

Transactions: Santander offers early paydays via DailyPay

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/payments/transactions-santander-offers-early-paydays-via-dailypay/

Santander Bank tapped earned wage access fintech DailyPay to offer its commercial banking clients an on-demand payment method. Earned wage access (EWA) is a benefit that Santander commercial clients can offer their employees, specifically in the state of today’s economy and inflation, Rob Nardelli, director of commercial banking and business development at DailyPay, told Bank […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/payments/transactions-santander-offers-early-paydays-via-dailypay/

Microsoft deploys OpenAI in Azure cloud platform

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/microsoft-deploys-openai-in-azure-cloud-platform/

Microsoft’s cloud commercial business drove earnings during its fiscal third quarter with the news that OpenAI’s technology is being deployed across Microsoft’s Azure products.  WHY IT MATTERS: The $380 billion company posted a 22% year-over-year increase in cloud revenues to $28.5 billion as Microsoft invested in the use of generative AI within its cloud offerings, […]

https://bankautomationnews.com/allposts/core-cloud/microsoft-deploys-openai-in-azure-cloud-platform/

Twitter Needs these 6 Things to Become an “Everything App”

https://finovate.com/twitter-needs-these-6-things-to-become-an-everything-app/

Ever since Elon Musk purchased Twitter last October for $44 million, he has been hinting of spinning the social media giant into what he is calling “X, the everything app.” In fintech, “everything apps” are known as super apps, and they exist primarily in Asia.

One of the latest developments in transitioning Twitter into a super app is Musk’s move to change Twitter’s name to X Corp. But a super app is much more than a name. Here’s a look at what the social media app currently offers, what it’s working on, and what it still needs to become a fully fledged super app.

What it has

Social
Social is most certainly Twitter’s strongest attribute. The micro-blogging platform was founded in 2006 and currently has around 450 monthly active users. While this is a considerable user base, however, it pales in comparison to well-known super app WeChat, which counts 1.3 billion monthly active users.

Investment tools
Earlier this month, Twitter partnered with eToro to not only offer real-time pricing data for stocks, but also to facilitate trades. The trades, however, do not take place within Twitter’s interface. Instead, users are routed to eToro’s website for stock details and to make trades.

What it’s (publicly) working on

Generative AI
Last week, Musk unveiled a new company called X.AI, The move confirmed rumors of his plans to launch a generative AI product after he purchased thousands of graphic processing units. X.AI is expected to compete with OpenAI, which Musk co-founded in 2015 but left in 2018 to avoid a conflict of interest.

While most super apps do not boast their own generative AI tool, adding a powerful chatbot such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT would be a major differentiating factor

Payments
Musk is publicly vociferous about his plan to add Venmo-like payments capabilities to Twitter. And it’s not just talk. Twitter filed with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and is also in the process of obtaining necessary state licenses, as well.

After Twitter begins facilitating peer-to-peer payments, it may begin offering more digital bank-like tools such as a high-yield savings account or even an X-branded payment card. This leads the conversation into what Twitter still needs to become a super app.

What’s missing

Personal finance
Twitter already offers stock trading (through a third party) and it is working on offering peer-to-peer payments. There is more to personal finance, however, than just investing and spending. In order to truly become an “everything app,” Twitter must offer brick-and-mortar payments, as well as an in-app dashboard that helps users track their spending, savings, and investments.

Shopping
This may end up being one of the most challenging aspects for Twitter to add in a way that would compete with the current top super app contenders in the U.S.– Walmart and PayPal. Currently, Walmart offers consumers access to goods from an Amazon-like supplier base, as well as to goods in their local Walmart store. PayPal’s shopping experience is less compelling, but offers deals from major service providers and retailers (including Walmart).

For Twitter to start a shopping experience from scratch wouldn’t be unfathomable, but it would take a long time. If it is seeking to compete with Walmart as a super app, it will likely need to find success via a partnership.

Transportation
A few of the most well-known super apps– Grab, Gojek, and Ola– began as transportation apps. Adding transportation capabilities has the potential to draw users into the app on a daily basis because they not only facilitate commutes via ride-hailing or public transportation payments, they also facilitate hyper-local delivery, grocery delivery, and restaurant delivery. These aspects play major roles in the lives of consumers.

Health services
Amazon, Walmart, and others have tackled the fragmented healthcare industry. Providing affordable health services, such as appointment booking, tele-health calls, records management, and ask-a-nurse services in a single place provides a lot of value for end users.

Health services will not be a primary driver bringing users into Twitter’s super app, but it will certainly help to keep them around and may even help target the app’s older users.

Insurance
Similar to adding health services, insurance tools will not serve as a primary draw for users. However, offering tools such as a digital lock box with insurance cards, contact information, coverage options, and payment history is a valuable add-on and can help reach older users not necessarily seeking social or payment capabilities.

Government and public services
To become a well-rounded super app, Twitter should add government and public services, such as public transportation payment and tracking, library cards, and tax preparation services. In the U.S. however, with the advent of FedNow and the potential addition of a CBDC, the government may end up beating Twitter to the punch with a super app of its own.


Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

https://finovate.com/twitter-needs-these-6-things-to-become-an-everything-app/