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Bloomberg Businessweek Fifty Most Influential
As in previous years, we began by asking dozens of reporters and editors in Bloomberg bureaus to nominate candidates. Then a panel of senior editors vetted and voted, narrowing the field from more than 100 names down to 50. From this effort comes the list you now see: a group of individuals who, followed singularly or collectively, drive some of the major trends sweeping the world of finance.
This Beautiful Copper Coin Could Transform How We Spend Money
It hurts to spend cash. Literally. And in a way, that’s a good thing. Because we’re living in a time where most people have less than $1,000 in their bank accounts, and almost $5,000 in credit card debt. Yet it’s unfair to simply blame the middle class’s financial woes on some lack of self-control, because in the age of smartphone payments, Amazon's Subscribe & Save, and good old credit card swipes, who earnestly considers their monthly budget every time they buy a coffee?
Health insurer bribes customers to exercise with an Apple Watch
A health insurer has become the first in Britain to bribe people to exercise in return for a smartwatch – but customers tempted to cheat on their daily quota are warned that they could be committing insurance fraud.
Vitality has signed a deal with the technology giant Apple that it hopes will tap into Britons’ growing taste for tracking their own movements and nutrition through wearable gadgets.
Swiss Central Banker: Blockchain Turning Finance 'On Its Head'
The president and chairman of the board of Switzerland's central bank described a financial system "turned on its head" by blockchain and distributed ledgers to kick off the Sibos conference yesterday in Switzerland.
Addressing a crowd of some 8,000 financial industry professionals, Thomas Jordan lectured on the history of centralization as a means to provide security and efficiency in the banking industry, from the birth of centralized clearing houses in the 1940s to the advent of the Six Interbank Clearing system (SIC) in 1987.
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Fintech: 'World's largest' financial technology hub Lattice80 set to launch in Singapore
In an effort to bolster its reputation a major player in the financial technology sector, an investment firm called the Marvelstone Group in Singapore has said it is set to open the "world's largest" fintech hub in November this year.
The facility, said to be 30,000 square-foot in size, will reportedly be a not-for-profit initiative set up to help fintech start-ups, support existing firms and develop new technology. The project is called Lattice80 and will be located in the busy Central Business District near the city stock exchange.
Pay-per-mile insurance startup Metromile raises $191.5M, acquires Mosaic Insurance
The automotive industry is in flux with the rise of self-driving and electric cars, and the concept of car ownership altogether being thrown into question. With this, the car insurance industry is changing, too, and now, an on-demand car insurance startup has raised a large round of funding as it aims to be leader of that change.
European insurance tech startup FinanceFox closes $28M Series A
“We’re not a bunch of startup dudes saying we’re disrupting insurance… we’re not a bunch of arrogant pricks,” FinanceFox co-founder and CEO Julian Teicke told me during a call late last week. The company, which is announcing $28 million in Series A funding today, is one of a number of European ‘insurtech’ startups who are attempting to bring insurance into the digital age.
Accenture Patents Editable Blockchain
The consultancy giant has caused upset in the fintech community by filing a patent for an editable blockchain feature that allows a central administrator to edit or delete information stored in a permissioned blockchain system, the Financial Times reports. A permissioned system is governed by a central administrator using agreed upon rules. This differs from permissionless systems, like those used by blockchain pioneers such as Bitcoin, which have no central authority.
Blockchain Database Startup BigchainDB Raises €3 Million
A startup seeking to scale blockchain for enterprise use has raised €3m ($3.37m) in venture capital to do for databases what bitcoin's blockchain did for ledgers.
Led by Earlybird Ventures and featuring participation from Anthemis Group, RWE Ventures, innogy SE and Digital Currency Group, BigchainDB's Series A round is intended to help expand the company's staff and bolster its security.
Whereas traditional databases are centrally controlled, BigchainDB is working to build a database that has "blockchain characteristics" and that is owned by its users.
Microsoft and BAML team up on blockchain-based trade finance project
Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) have joined forces on a project to use blockchain technology to make trade finance transactions faster, cheaper, safer and more transparent, the companies said on Tuesday.
The two multinationals said at the Sibos financial services conference in Geneva that they would build and test the technology and create a blockchain-based framework that could eventually be sold to other businesses.