Madhvi Sonia - Community Author: Finextra Research

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

Women in finance: How AI is shining a light on diversity

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Women in finance: How AI is shining a light on diversity

Despite equality being one of the cornerstones of civilised society, a lack of gender parity and diversity within the financial services industry continues to be a problem, with many banks maintaining disparate corporate policies and different ways of ensuring work environments operate efficiently for all genders employed in the sector. UNICEF dat...

09 March 2020 /ai

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

The tipping point of AI FOMO

While artificial intelligence is transforming several industries, the financial sector has a lot to learn from specific case studies in non-banking areas such as health, travel and retail. To start at the beginning, despite the term AI having been bandied about with a number of different definitions, the actual definition is simple: technology tha...

17 February 2020 /ai

Cutting through the hype of personal identity

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

Cutting through the hype of personal identity

As we progress further into 2020, it is evident that the issues and opportunities surrounding the topic of identity within the financial services marketplace are undergoing fundamental change. Because of technological advance, digital verification is playing a larger part in banking. Developments such as social media and mobile phones have provide...

27 January 2020 /inclusion

Long reads