Madhvi Sonia - Community Author: Finextra Research

Best practices for neobanks utilising machine learning to prevent fraud

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Best practices for neobanks utilising machine learning to prevent fraud

Unburdened by legacy technology, physical branches and stringent regulatory requirements, digital financial outfits — otherwise known as neobanks — can disrupt the status quo, scale retail propositions, and expand into lucrative spaces such as business banking with a streamlined model. With over 250 neobanks operating worldwide and many more on t...

17 June 2021 /retail

The cloud oligopoly, regulation, and the collaboration conundrum in the financial ecosystem

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

The cloud oligopoly, regulation, and the collaboration conundrum in the financial ecosystem

Consumers are evolving. They now expect the same agile customer experience from their financial services providers that they are offered elsewhere by other industries. Searching for ways to optimise the digital experience for customers, financial institutions have been leveraging the elasticity, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness of cloud computin...

16 April 2021 /cloud

Fintech jobs: The challenges for women in the workplace

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Fintech jobs: The challenges for women in the workplace

Every year, the Innovate Finance Women in Fintech Powerlist shines a light on 150 women across seven categories who have made a substantial impact across the industry. A selected panel of independent judges also select the Standout 35, a group of 35 women who are making a difference over and above their day-to-day role. While I am proud and humble...

24 March 2021 /people

How digital identity is the catalyst for increasing financial inclusion among women

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

How digital identity is the catalyst for increasing financial inclusion among women

Women make up 55% of the world’s unbanked population. Ahead of International Women’s Day, Finextra interviewed several experts in the financial services community about how women can be granted the autonomy to take control of their own financial decisions and the barriers that need to be removed, namely the lack of a formal ID. The digital divide ...

08 March 2021 /identity

Top French sustainable finance strategists provide an ESG reporting blueprint

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Top French sustainable finance strategists provide an ESG reporting blueprint

At a Bloomberg EU Policy event ahead of International Women’s Day, Banque de France’s Sylvie Goulard and the French government’s Olivia Grégoire discussed how to encourage companies to commit to environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure, how to improve the quality of data provided by organisations and whether it is time to reinforce re...

04 March 2021 /sustainable

What Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos stepping down means for fintech

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

What Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos stepping down means for fintech

Jeff Bezos will step down as founder and CEO of Amazon and transition to chairman in 2021, allowing seasoned cloud executive Andy Jassy to take the reins of the $1.6 trillion giant. As detailed in an email to his employees, Bezos will focus his “energies and attention on new products and early initiatives,” suggesting that the world’s richest man ...

03 February 2021 /people

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Finextra’s Top Long Reads of 2020

With 2020 drawing to a close, we take a look back at our most popular long reads over the course of the past year. What should be taken into account if Artificial Intelligence is to be regulated? In this article, Juan Murillo, Senior Manager of Data Strategy at BBVA, and Jesús Lozano, Manager of Digital Regulation at BBVA, analyse the potential im...

24 December 2020 /predictions

Beyond Invisible Solutions: Banks Should be Preventing Fraud, not Playing Catch Up

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Beyond Invisible Solutions: Banks Should be Preventing Fraud, not Playing Catch Up

Ville Sointu, head of emerging technologies at Nordea, highlights that the intent of GDPR was “fantastic. It provides better data protection for the citizens of the European Union and beyond and therefore, asking companies to be more diligent with personal data and giving customers more control.” However, despite these intentions, there are downsi...

17 November 2020 /predictions

Event Stream Processing: How Banks Can Overcome SQL and NoSQL Related Obstacles with Apache Kafka

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Event Stream Processing: How Banks Can Overcome SQL and NoSQL Related Obstacles with Apache Kafka

While getting to grips with open banking regulation, skyrocketing transaction volumes and expanding customer expectations, banks have been rolling out major transformations of data infrastructure and partnering with Silicon Valley’s most innovative tech companies to rebuild the banking business around a central nervous system. This can also be lab...

21 August 2020 /devops

There is more to digital payments in Africa than M-Pesa

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

There is more to digital payments in Africa than M-Pesa

In 2010, Kenyan payments, money transfer and micro-financing service M-Pesa became the most successful mobile phone based financial service in the developing world, just three years after the launch by network operators Vodafone and Safaricom. Since then, while other developing markets such as the APAC and LATAM regions have dominated headlines, t...

25 June 2020 /payments

What are the implications of digital transformation on payments?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

What are the implications of digital transformation on payments?

Financial institutions have been forced to step up their game in order to keep up with consumer demand and push out several different products and services, leveraging emerging technologies, to provide customers with choice. Today, retail customers can deposit cheques, transfer funds and apply for loans from their mobile devices, signifying that w...

02 April 2020 /payments

Is Python storming ahead of Java in fintech?

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Is Python storming ahead of Java in fintech?

The use of Python is catching up to Java in banking and fintech applications, but what are the reasons behind the emergence of Python? While three million developers have joined the Java community in the past year, in the banking sector, Python is fast closing in on Java’s position in top spot. Python’s backstory in banking Across all sectors, Pyt...

18 March 2020 /devops

Long reads