Níamh Curran - Community Author: Finextra Research

The rise of banking-as-a-service

Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) has become one of the major trends rising within payments. Gartner predicts that BaaS will be mainstream before the end of 2024 and this trend has sat at the top of the Gartner Hype Cycle from September 2022. This is an excerpt from Future of Payments 2023. BaaS is when banks open their APIs to allow digital banks and o...

22 June 2023 /payments

Níamh Curran

The clever use of data

Data is crucial to every financial institution and a coveted asset for customer growth and innovation. The incentives of having and using data are well known and offer benefits to both financial institutions and consumers. This is an excerpt from Future of Payments 2023. There is the possibility for financial institutions to have greater collaborat...

21 June 2023 /devops

Níamh Curran

Liquidity management 4.0

The future of liquidity management is volatile. Liquidity management is facing the challenges of regional conflict and the impact of sanctions, inflation, and supply chain delays. This economic climate’s instability has increased the pressure for financial institutions to ensure they have assets in the right place at the right time. This is an exc...

20 June 2023 /payments

Correspondent banking - essential or dispensible?

Níamh Curran

Correspondent banking - essential or dispensible?

Correspondent banking plays an essential role in the global economy. Over the last few decades, correspondent banking has helped banks enable global payments, enhancing growth in international payments and trade. This is an excerpt from Future of Payments 2023. Yet, this stalwart of the banking system is now facing an increasingly complex regulator...

19 June 2023 /payments

Banks must prepare for the next Black Swan event

Níamh Curran

Banks must prepare for the next Black Swan event

This is an excerpt from The Future of Risk Management and Compliance 2023 report. Within the context of these arising risks, financial institutions are looking to increasingly sophisticated ways of preparing themselves for these events, and the crimes they make institutions vulnerable to. Roshni Patel, Quantexa, refers to these global events as, ‘B...

14 June 2023 /regulation

Níamh Curran

New risks in an uncertain market

This is an excerpt from The Future of Risk Management and Compliance 2023 report. External global factors continuously have an impact on on the challenges faced by financial institutions around regulation. The last few years have challenged the compliance departments in most financial institutions, but 2022 moving into 2023 has offered a host of n...

13 June 2023 /regulation

International Women's Day: ChatGPT and how gender bias in AI can impact innovation

Níamh Curran

International Women's Day: ChatGPT and how gender bias in AI can impact innovation

The 2023 International Women’s Day campaign theme is to Embrace Equity and asks our world to discuss why equal opportunities aren’t enough. “Equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have. A focus on gender equity needs to be part of every society’s DNA. And it’s critical to understand the difference between equity and equality,” according to ...

07 March 2023 /people /ai

Níamh Curran

Metaverse progress unlikely in 2023

The metaverse is a hot topic which everyone seems keen to pontificate about, but less so to actually dip their toes in. The reasons for this, especially in the financial services sector, are obvious. This technology is new and not fully developed, and its benefits it offers compared to a more traditional investment option remain to be seen. Despi...

16 February 2023 /crypto

The golden circle: Are gold-linked digital assets the future?

Níamh Curran

The golden circle: Are gold-linked digital assets the future?

Richard Nixon un-pegged the US from the gold standard over 50 years ago, and with it the rest of the world began accepting the free-floating currencies we use today. At the time it was an extremely bold move, but one which was deemed necessary for continued economic growth and to fight against inflation rates. At times of global downturn people of...

25 January 2023 /crypto

FinCrime outlook 2023: ChatGPT, deepfakes and the same old scams

Níamh Curran

FinCrime outlook 2023: ChatGPT, deepfakes and the same old scams

2022 saw a number of scams hit the top of Finextra’s headlines. Research found that 8% of consumers were ignoring confirmation of payee warnings and celebrities like Joe Lycett even waded in on the issues,. As the cost-of-living crisis continues to make people feel more financially vulnerable, the importance of education around scams and fraud i...

23 January 2023 /crime

CBDC infrastructure in 2023 – scapegoats, politics, and interoperability

Níamh Curran

CBDC infrastructure in 2023 – scapegoats, politics, and interoperability

The potential progress of CBDC remained in the headlines throughout 2022. Towards the end of the year, it was announced that the central banks of Sweden, Norway, and Israel collaborated with the Bank of International Settlement (BIS) to investigate how CBDCs can be used for international retail and remittance payments. The Bank of Canada also par...

11 January 2023 /crypto

Cryptocurrency sustainability: how do we solve a problem like Bitcoin?

Níamh Curran

Cryptocurrency sustainability: how do we solve a problem like Bitcoin?

Bitcoin uses significant amounts of energy, more than any other cryptocurrency. If cryptocurrencies are to be taken seriously in the wider financial world, it is important that the energy consumption of Bitcoin is not conflated with all cryptocurrencies. While estimates on this vary, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) has found th...

08 December 2022 /crypto

Long reads