Amidst all the speculations and debates about the ability of cryptocurrencies to store value, the US banking giant, JPMorgan & Chase announced the launch of their own digital currency. The “JPM Coin” is expected to conduct a tiny fraction of the bank’s $6 trillion daily transactions.
So, What is JPM Coin?
The JPM coin has been created on top of Quorum which is an enterprise-focused variant of Ethereum blockchain platform. This new”cryptocurrency” from JP Morgan Chase isn’t exactly a Cryptocurrency. It is more like a digital representation of basic banking. It can be only used to represent your money located within a Morgan Chase account. Stable coin will be a more matching description for JPM coin and it looks promising enough to spread all over other banking systems in the near future.
How does it work?
Unlike the Bitcoin and Ethereum, the value of a JPM coin is pegged to the US Dollar. So one coin will be always equal to $1. Once a customer transfers his money through the bank, the fund will be transformed into an equal number of JPM Coins. These coins will be transferred instantaneously to the recipient and he can redeem it from the bank.
Why JP Morgan and Chase are launching a Digital Coin?
In early 2018, the bank had expressed its interest in the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies with proper control and regulation. The ability of these technologies to enable immediate value transfer and lower capital requirements have always attracted such financial firms. Most large banks in the world are now doing their research in the blockchain technology to find a cure for many woes present in the financial sector.
One of the major woe JP Morgan chase trying to solve through the JPM coin is the ageing Swift transaction networks. With this new coin, the bank will be able to provide a faster, cheaper and reliable environment for value transactions.
The Important After Effects of this Launch
JP Morgan Chase is the first major financial institutions in the US to introduce its own digital coin. It can be seen as a positive sign towards the upcoming applications of blockchain technology. By introducing JPM coin, the bank has validated the credibility and reliability of blockchain technology which will motivate other private and government institutes to adopt the technology.
The huge size of JP Morgan and Chase bank will help the rest of the world to understand more about the scalability and global adoption of the blockchain. With around 27 million accounts to serve data, the end result of this digital coin will influence the consumer blockchain adoption.
However, this facility is not yet available to the general public. According to the bank, the coin is still in its test phase. As of now, this service will be limited to a few institutional clients. With other large banks including Citi moving forward with their blockchain research, in a very near future, we can expect the more interventions from this tech into the traditional systems.
Tag: cryptocurrency
Indian Fintech 5.4$ bn in 3 Years
It has been only around three years since the inception of the first Fintech startup in India. Since that very first day, this sector has been growing steadily. We know that in November 2016, our high-value currency notes were demonetized. Unlike many other businesses, the Fintech startups made huge benefits from this government decision. In the next three years after demonetization, a huge percentage of Indian people have adopted digital transaction. The investors have identified this opportunity and raised about $5.4 billion in equity funding. From the $593 million in 2016, there was an increase of a whopping 300% to $2.34 billion in 2018. The year witnessed 144 equity deals in the Finitech sector.
So, What are the Factors Attracting the Investors?
The Fintech service firms are literally redesigning the way the financial transactions conducted on a daily basis. When it comes to India, such a large country with over a billion people, there is a huge untapped market for Fintech startups, to begin with. The rate of mobile penetration has reached 65-75 percentage in India which is expected to hit the 90% mark by 2020. The market opportunity presented by this alone is huge enough for all the investments to make sense.
Also, it is estimated that as much as 90% of India’s small businesses are yet to link with formal financial institutes. Similarly, there are plenty of gaps between institutions and services in India which offer great scope for the Fintech solutions.
The Upcoming Years
So many reasons are pointed out by the experts for the investors to stay excited in the upcoming years.
- The maturity of Fintech sector: The series D round of 2018 witnessed six deal in total. In 2016, there was not even a single startup to make it to the series D stage. This comparison indicates the maturity of the Indian Fintech sector.
- The growing number of “Unicorns”: Until 2017, the Paytm was the only so-called “unicorn” company from Fintech sector. By 2019, the list of coveted companies from Fintech got longer with BillDesk, PolicyBazaar and PineLabs. Now, Fintech has the most number of “unicorn” companies beating the e-commerce sector.
- The increased Quantum of investments: There has been a massive jump in the quantum of investments. Between 2016 and 2018, the number of series A deals grew 12.5%. But the deal size grew from $64 million to $146.8 million, a growth of 129 percentage. The growth of Series C deal size for the same period was a whopping 270%.
- Opportunities in the Lending sector: Lending has remained to be the biggest attraction for investors in Fintech. Almost half of the equity funds were invested in startups focused on lending. With huge numbers of untouched markets lying beyond the Tier I and Tier II, lending startups have a great future in India.
With the internet connection being more accessible and government supporting the digitization of the economy, there is no doubt about the opportunities lying ahead in India for the Fintech. Hence, the large investments made in this sector are clearly no wonder and it will probably continue for the next few years.
Can You Have a Career in Fintech without Coding Knowledge?
Technology has changed the way things are done, in almost every field conceivable to man. Be it healthcare or warfare, the advent of technology has had a significant impact on the proceedings. To no surprise, the financial world has also benefitted hugely from these advances, and the field of Fintech emerged in the past few decades.
However, many banking professionals are still apprehensive about getting into Fintech because of some misconceptions they have. You might think that the addition of tech into the financial world means that everyone must understand how to operate the tech aspect of it, and thus must know to code in order to survive.
However, that is not true – you can still have a career in Fintech despite having relatively less knowledge on how the code is written.
Can You Have a Fintech Career Despite not Knowing Coding?
The short answer is that yes, you can not only have a career but also be successful in the field without knowing how to write code extensively. Coding is usually used when organizations need to implement new software or make some changes in the way things are run currently.
To make these changes, it is always easy for the organization to hire a computer programmer, rather than insisting that it needs to be done by the Fintech professional himself. In fact, most banks and other large Fintech organizations have dedicated teams of coders who are always on-site in order to make such changes.
That does not render obsolete the other capable professionals working in the organization, so coding is not a necessity to work in Fintech.
Then what are the skills required to get into Fintech?
Since the field mainly deals with the financial world, you will definitely need to have a good understanding of how finances work and function in order to be successful at it. Even if you do not know how to code, you will also definitely need to be comfortable with technology. While there are many jobs that focus more on the business side of things, knowledge of technology is definitely going to help you get to where you want to.
You will also need to have a number of soft skills, as the finance world is an extremely soft-skill and relationship-oriented one. Communication skills are a must – you will find yourself having to coordinate and communicate with multiple teams and people, ranging from tech experts to customers on a daily basis. Therefore, your communication skills, both written and oral must definitely be of high quality.
Fintech organizations also hire based on the problem-solving skills of the person. A huge requirement of the job is that the person must be able to solve a lot of problems that appear on a daily basis, to ensure that the organization is running seamlessly without any interruptions. You will have to optimize constantly, in order to make things function quicker and more efficiently in order to get a head start on the competition.
If you are looking to get into Fintech, there are a lot of Fintech courses that can help you dip your toes in these deep waters. The Fintech online courses offered by Imarticus Learning is a great place to start at.
How to Traverse the Future of Fintech The Best Fintech Courses to Learn?
If you working in finance already, or are interested in switching to finance as a career choice, you will most likely have heard of the high number of opportunities present in the field. Huge changes are being implemented in the way finance is done now, and a digital transformation is happening already – therefore, professionals need to have a larger skill set too.
Today, you can be certain that most of what is known today about finance will become obsolete or unnecessary in the next decade or so – such is the digital transformation occurring. The digital disruption movement has arrived at finance, and it can be visible in instances like the rapid growth of Zhong An. The digital insuring company Zhong An currently has more customers in five years than what traditional giants like Citi, JPM and HSBC have combined, even though they have been in the market for more than a century now.
SO how do you obtain the skills which are required for you to make a splash in this field? Luckily, there are many Fintech online courses available today. Actually, Fintech Courses in India are making quite a splash, and have an increasing number of students with every passing day. This is because both working professionals in finance and rookies feel the need to understand the digital transformation that is happening today.
Some of the best Fintech Courses available have been mentioned here, in no particular order. These courses touch upon most new technologies, from blockchains to cryptocurrencies and machine learning, since these are the innovations which are most likely to have an impact on your career as a Fintech professional.
Best Fintech Courses
Oxford Fintech Program, Said Business School
The course by Oxford University has two broad aims – to arm the students with a working knowledge of Fintech innovation today and to impart a sense of critical thinking which would help them launch their own Fintech venture. The course has a heavy workload and has a number of practical exercises which truly stretch your mind when you think about what can be possible in modern finance. It requires some basic understanding of future of Fintech from beforehand, as it is an advanced course. The cost of the course is around 2500 Pounds, and it is an online, ten-week-long course.
Introduction to Fintech by University of Hong Kong
Taught by some of the leading academics in the field, this course is for university graduates and relative amateurs to get a feel of the field they are interested in. The course starts from some of the key concepts and progresses well. It is available online for free, too.
Innovative Banking, by Imperial College Business School
This course is meant for bankers with extensive experience in the field and those who are looking to understand the digital transformations taking place today. The course gives an idea about how you can implement Fintech systems in their own organisations. There is a focus on the new, modern blockchain technology too. It costs around 2390 Pounds, and it is a 2-day in-class programme.
If you find yourself yearning to learn more about Fintech, check out the Fintech Courses available at Imarticus Learning!
Rupee Nears a 3 Month High as Oil Prices Fall
The Rupee-Rial arrangement could be reviewed by India with Iran to bail out exporters because of the pressure of US sanctions that have made it difficult to conduct any trade with Islamic countries. In the years of 2011-2012, a rupee-rial mechanism was put in place where around 45% of India’s purchases of Iranian crude for items like rice, wheat and medicines that were not sanctioned by the UN.
The rupee rose to a three month high in trade today. This was due to the strong FII flows and increased dollar exporters. At this point of time, India imported more than two third of its oil requirement, and this was aided by a fall in crude prices easing dollar demand from exporters.
Forex dealers speculated that greenback’s weakness against some currencies overseas. There is also a bullish trend in the equity market as easing crude oil prices also helped the rupee’s upward movement. They also mentioned that the Reserve Bank of India was not intervening to contain the sharp rise in rupee in the stock market.
Iran exports could see a hike if the US and its allies go ahead with sanctions. It means that there is potential to put a lid on growth in India’s exports to Iran. India has a good trade deficit of over $ 8 billion with Iran thanks to the oil imports so exports will not face a lot of issues when it comes to rupee. Rice alone also accounts for over 1/3rd of India’s total exports to Iran in 2017-18 and the oil purchases of India from Iran is worth around $9 billion in 2017-18. According to commerce secretary Rita Teaotia, the US move is not likely to cause any major shift in India’s trade with Iran as we have shipped out goods to Islamic nations before as per the sanctions.
One of the major highlights of the rupee rising oil prices fell after US crude inventories swelled to their inventories. India is the largest importer of oil and imports 81 per cent after US and China.
The rupee closed went on a winning streak this year since February 2017 as the currency strengthened past the 71 mark and bond prices gained 8 points on Thursday. The rupee hit the three-month high and gained over 3.1% in seven sessions.
When the dollar weakens against some other currencies, it had a direct impact on foreign fund inflows which supported the rupee. The rupee went up by 76 paise and was at its highest since August 2018 at 70.69.
India Forex Advisors CEO Abhishek Goenka said, “The US dollar trading weak overseas has enhanced the strength in the local unit.”
Conclusion
As the market fluctuates, we can wait and watch to see how the rupee performs and its direct impact on oil prices. Foreign investors have sold $7.58bn and $5.03bn in debt and equity markets respectively this year.
Reference
https://www.financialexpress.com/market/softening-crude-oil-prices-help-rupee-to-hit-near-3-month-high-will-is-go-below-70-in-near-future/1391208/
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/markets/indian-rupee-closes-near-3-month-high-up-76-paise-to-70-69-against-us-dollar-3207191.html
Is Blockchain Worth Investing In? If So, How Do You Go About It?
Cryptocurrencies drew a lot of discussion and attention with falling prices, bans and legalese. Currently riding high is the Blockchain technology supporting it worth investing in.
Blockchain Technology
Simply put, the revolutionary Blockchain technology makes possible a precise digital system that accounts all transactions while storing every change in a “block.” A series of blocks form a “chain” and its name. Further, they are locally stored but updated instantaneously on all networked computers making the system recorded, secure and manipulation-free. A huge boon, especially when financial transactions are involved.
Very large names like Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, the banking, fintech, and financial sectors and startups like Sia Cloud are probing, using and relying on Blockchains and hence the share values of firms invested in it is bound to grow in leaps and bounds if it becomes the next successful unicorn in today’s digital and rapidly transforming markets.
Blockchain Shares and Where Is It worth Investing In
When cryptos are not for you then investing in the technology behind them, makes perfect sense and is the right way to go. Brokers and trading are synonymous, and the field is complex. There are also free brokers like ING-Diba and Comdirect who provide a good experience in trading.
Currently, the market in Blockchain shares has two groups from the investment perspective.
Low Capital Startups and Holding Companies
- TIO Networks provides cloud services to pay multiple channel invoices in the unbanked areas. Currently, they have three BU’s Telecom Solutions (service-provider area), Consumer Financial Solutions (B2C) and Biller and Agent Solutions (for process-payments).
- Bitcoin Group SE the holding company focuses on disruptive, innovative business models and technologies for the cryptos and Blockchain segments. They own Bitcoin Deutschland AG.
- The British Coinsilium Group is invested in fintech innovations and Blockchain-based technologies.
- Digitalx and Telefonica will collaboratively make the Blockchain-based money transfer app Airpocket for payment transfers.
Large Companies Using Blockchains in Cryptocurrency and Financial Technology
- Apple terms Zcash a legitimate crypto because it is anonymous, private and uses secure zero-knowledge Blockchain technology.
- IBM offers ‘Blockchain Clouds’ targeting high-speed transactions of 1000/second in businesses and trading markets.
- RWE and Innogy are also using sustainable Blockchains for their new venture.
There are many others like these which are worth researching and are using the technology for cybersecurity, the IoT, AI, cloud computing and such emerging areas. The most significant innovation would be when fintech courses are involved and include important areas like investing in internet values and potential of Blockchains conduct open discussions on cryptocurrencies investments and their future in our digital world of TODAY.
Challenges Fintech Companies Face While Expanding to Rural India
Fintech companies move ahead with creative innovations in both the field of finances and technology. In India, Fintech does have a successful turnover in the Indian market which concern financial transaction between masses through various media. Citing examples of Fintech in daily lives of Indians, one may note the usage of payment apps like Paytm, PhonePe or Google Tez app which have progressively changed the process of monetary transactions for various purposes.
Such apps are especially popular for peer-to-peer (PtoP) transactions i.e. digital money exchanges at the local level. In fact, these Fintech start-ups have been on the increase in the subcontinent giving multiple options to a larger section of the community without the documentary hassles which had often been associated with the banks. One can thus say that Fintech is a booming process in India be it the upper class or the much larger population of rural India.
Nonetheless, one can easily accept that as opportunities grow for these Fintech courses, new challenges also crop up. The online money transfer feature was a huge success for the initial start-ups in the field especially during the period of Demonetisation when larger currencies were banned. Eventually, a lot of start-ups have opened up providing the same feature increasing the competition in the market. Only those can stay put in the market that have a robust foundational framework and have been kept intact with a strong experienced team.
A firm foundation depends on apt funding which can be a problem in India due to the cap on foreign investment. It is a well regarded fact that most Fintech players can only stay intact in the long run if they work on collaborating with the bigger well-established banks in India and the top few players can hit the home run on that front.
One of the major obstacles faced by these Fintech organizations is the lack of proper regulations since the Reserve Bank of India and the Exchange Board of India are yet to work on a comprehensive, exclusive set of guidelines for them. Moreover, the organizations must have a firm outlook while developing strategies making them reliable to the banking firms. Key technologies like cryptocurrency have not been given due credit in India.
At this point that Fintech is all about fresh new innovations at the right time since the digital market is a volatile playground. India’s record on that part is yet to reach a world class level. The market is specifically dynamic sensitive to small changes in prices and the evanescent base of customer loyalty. Cryptocurrency is a primary keyword of Fintech incorporating concepts like blockchains and liquid money to enhance the digital market.
Cryptocurrency with AI technology like Robotics Automation Process (RPA) can have great potential. RPA has in fact been actualized by organizations like Wipro and Accenture. Insurance companies have maximum usage of RPA followed by banking and financial services. A cost-effective solution is still being tested to explore the possibilities of this rather new tool.
Talking about the audience, there is a significant gradient scope in the level of digital awareness of masses. While there is an increasing base of tech-savvy people, there is also a large section deprived of basic literacy. Thus, in spite of a huge population, these organizations fail to reach the masses and even those who desperately need it. The sellers therefore need themselves to be aware of the fact that there’s a large portion of the crowd that needs awareness. While developments are being made, it will still take a considerable amount of time to cover this gap of knowledge.
Finally, one comes to the discussion of the anxieties of data security which is a constant threat to any Fintech industry. Personal financial data of individuals are very sensitive which can never be under-valued. A strong force of security should be the topmost priority in a country of massive population.
Cyber security rules in India are still under development and several cases keep coming up of hackers and their threats. Sellers should be extremely cautious from the beginning since any vulnerability displayed may cause a massive rupture in reputation and future prospects.
The Government and finance controls play indispensable roles for these Fintech firms. Newly developing products go on to increase complexities before the resolution of the previous problem and as such, a stack of issues crop up which leads to the ultimate downfall. While Indian firms are working on these issues but the audience adaptations is a crucial area to explore.