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Trust before technology: Why fintechs need to put more emphasis on trust

fintech_trust

The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data. Since ‘The Economist’ published this ground-breaking truth in 2017, “Data, as the new oil,” has become a common refrain in business circles. But far from becoming a cliché, the weight of this statement is so heavy and profound that companies are taking heed.

With AI and ML making forays into several industries, we are coming to terms with making decisions based on petabytes of data.

Single-handedly, the data revolution has revamped the way in which most businesses today operate. It forms the backbone for customer-led innovation, business policies and practices, and even new product and service offerings.

For instance, companies like Amazon and Netflix that utilise customer data to provide customised user experiences have proven to be unstoppable.

In the financial services industry too, data plays a pivotal role in initiating positive changes across the board. Over the past few years, we’ve welcomed the emergence of challenger banks and mobile payment solutions that rely heavily on data.

Most notably, the far-encompassing definition of fintech, as a term that refers to the innovation that aims to improve and automate the delivery and use of traditional financial services, is now an everyday term that even the layperson can relate to.

Clearly, in this data-inundated marketplace, an organization’s winning edge will depend largely on how it is able to control its data. However, data supremacy is only one side of the coin. Equally important is its oft-overlooked flip side.

Consumer trust, the flip side of data overload

A recent study by the World Economic Forum and the University of Cambridge found that “trust and user adoption” of the latest technologies, such as AI, seemed to be the topmost hurdle faced by the financial industry today. Though technological improvements are indeed viewed positively, trust and buy-in from current and future customers will emerge as a key differentiator in the days to come.

Forbes noted that consumer trust directly impacts the bottom line.

Also read: Building trust in Machine Learning and AI in digital lending

Apparently, the average consumer today not only wants but demands to know all about a company before opening his/her wallet. More than 73 per cent consider transparency more important than price and 40 per cent say they will switch from their preferred brand to another that offers more transparency.

Clearly, the compulsion to base decisions on data runs both ways!

The cost of poorly handled data

In 2018, 500 million personal records were stolen. According to the RiskBased Data Breach QuickView Report at the end of September 2019, there were 5,183 breaches exposing 7.9 billion records. Compared to the 2018 report for the same period, the total number of breaches was up 33.3 per cent and the total number of records exposed more than doubled, up 112 per cent.

Another report from Norton reveals that there were 3,800 publicly disclosed breaches and 4.1 billion records exposed in the first half of 2019 alone.

All these data breaches affect companies in myriads of direct and indirect ways that we may not have completely fathomed as yet. Short-term direct losses—a drop in share price, revenue loss, and increased crisis management budget—are inevitable. In the ASEAN region, the average organizational cost of a data breach stands at about $3.6 million.

However, the indirect cost, often overlooked, is even more noxious—loss of reputation and customer trust. Data stewardship and protection or its lack thereof can directly impact your enterprise’s reputation, customer trust and overall business health for years to come.

Why data supremacy and trust must go hand-in-hand

How do these findings translate into the operational activities of a fintech? The Global FinTech Adoption Index 2019: notes that the ‘trust gap’ can create opportunities for both incumbent financial institutions and FinTech challengers.

“Even though non-financial services companies have led the way in deploying new technologies to deliver innovative services and have raised the bar on consumer expectations, they do not yet have the full confidence of consumers when it comes to providing financial services on their own.”

Fintech players must ensure that their offerings take heed of both the financial institutions’ need for data and the customers’ concerns for privacy. In May 2018, an EU regulation around data protection and privacy—the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—came into effect.

Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information and California’s Consumer Privacy Act also steps in the right direction. All these regulations ensure that data regulators protect personal data and establish data privacy standards for their businesses across the globe.

Above all, it puts the power back into the hands of the consumer—ensuring they have the right to demand how their personal data is being used and requesting companies to delete it if required.

Though the Fintech industry is well-equipped with technologies, communicating this message to customers and winning their trust will need to be prioritised.

If businesses can showcase their ongoing effort to keep stakeholders constantly updated, we can reduce indirect costs and more importantly, build a community of trust that will propel the industry to greater heights.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

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Image credit: Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

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Why you shouldn’t let your mind dismiss your entrepreneurial dream

Scared to being entrepreneur

People who want to own their own business but are afraid to do it often produce similar excuses. Because of these excuses, many people cannot start their own business.

Of course, starting your own business is a challenging process and requires a lot of dedication to succeed in this field. Mohab Ayoub, Algedra Interior Design Company’s CEO says that ”The way to success is not easy, and even a person on the road to success may lose hope and motivation when facing obstacles.”

These difficult processes can intimidate many people and cause them to step back. These difficulties experienced by others can turn into excuses for entrepreneur candidates who are afraid to start their own business.

In this guide, we will focus on these excuses:

Being too old or too young

One of the biggest and most suggested excuses is the age problem. Many people avoid pursuing their own dreams, using their age as an excuse. This is because they are sometimes very old and sometimes too young.

Older people think that it is not possible to start something new after a certain age, it can be difficult to set up some things from scratch. Of course, while starting some things from scratch, some of the comforts obtained must be abandoned.

However, one of the things that should not be forgotten is that, although it reaches a certain age, it gives the opportunity to have many experiences both in business life and personally.

These experiences can be very useful when starting a business from scratch. While making business decisions, starting from these experiences, some problems can be prevented before they even surface.

It is thanks to these experiences that what kind of management is to be made or what kind of decisions are taken can be achieved faster and reaching a certain age gives you this opportunity.

There are also those who do not take some steps because they are very young. The disadvantage of young people is the lack of experience. However, being at a young age also has its advantages.

Also read: 5 excuses aspiring entrepreneurs use to put off starting up

You can follow many innovations more closely and adapt to them more easily. This is a good opportunity to do entirely young people; because you know their demands and wishes.

The first job you do doesn’t need to succeed. You can learn some lessons from this job and have experience. In this way, you can learn from your mistakes and sail to new ports.

My environment is not wide enough

Having a wide environment when you start a business will offer you some advantages. This can both open up some doors to invest in your business and allow you to promote your business more quickly.

However, the fact that your environment is not wide right now does not mean that this will be the case all the time. You can start to expand your environment and promote your business by participating in industry-related events, meeting people in the industry through social channels.

Unless you communicate, others will not try to reach you.

Not enough time

One of the excuses made by people who have a regular job right now is that they don’t have enough time. If you have the idea of starting your own business and you are excused about time; you probably do not fully believe this job and you do not want to waste your time because you do not believe it.

When you have complete faith in your job, you can create the time required. If this job excites you, you can create time and continue both jobs by sacrificing both your social environment and sleep. Lack of time is entirely up to you.

Fear of failure

Another excuse is the fear of failure in the work. Everyone is afraid to fail; however, the greatest experiences and life lessons come with failures. When you look at the lives of successful people, you see that these people face certain problems and that they have some successes after failing many times in life.

The reason for this is that failure comes with experience. The more experience you have, the more confident you can take your next step and you will make better decisions.

Therefore, do not view failure as a negative situation. Accept the mistakes you make and encourage yourself to open a new door.

I can’t leave my current job

You will need financial resources to continue your life, and therefore it is important to have a regular job. But if this is getting ahead of your dreams, you have started to make some excuses.

To start your own business, you need to devote yourself to this idea. When you dedicate yourself, the obstacles that you encounter will not be a problem for you.

I don’t have the money to start a business

Another of the biggest excuses is that there is not enough capital. This situation goes beyond excuse and in some cases has a share of reality. However, it is another problem not to start your project due to the shortcomings you have.

If you have a very good project, if this project will solve some problems in the lives of consumers and you really believe in this project, you can start your project and then knock on the investors’ door during the draft stage.

Investors support projects that require a lot of capital and are really ambitious.

Expecting to be perfect

It will not make any sense if you do not implement it after starting your project. Many people expect the job to be perfect at this stage. This is actually another excuse. Because there are some fears behind it.

With such a point of view, you can never make your job perfect; because you want to constantly improve. Instead, start your project as soon as possible and try to perfect your work on the go.

In this way, you can bring the project to a better place by taking the ideas of the end-user, apart from your own ideas. You will start your more important business and you will now have more responsibility.

Sign up for the e27 Webinar: How to believe in yourself when no one else does

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page.

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Morning News Roundup: 500 Startups invests in e-sports platform ESPL; Indonesia’s Datasaur secures US$1M funding

ESPL_500 Startups_hoolah_GDP Venture_Datasaur_Allectus_CCA Group

hoolah’s team

Finance

500 Startups invests in mobile-focussed Esports Players League

Esports Players League​ (ESPL), a global e-sports tournament network and platform, has announced that it has secured an undisclosed investment from 500 Startups​ as a part of its seed round.

500 Startups said that it intended to support ESPL in executing its initial business objective of rolling out branded tournaments and platforms in ten countries in its first year of operation.

ESPL is a global e-sports tournament platform provider focussed on creating mobile ecosystems for amateur esports leagues globally. Through ESPL’s national franchise model, up-and-coming esports talents can easily participate in global competitions, all by facilitating grassroots participation.

ESPL was co-founded by former eSports.com CEO Michael Broda; Kin Wai Lau, Founder of ​iCandy Interactive Limited​; and Datuk Azrin Bin Mohd Noor of Sedania Innovator​.

According to the release, phase one of ESPL’s global roll-out has yielded franchise partnership agreements in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

ESPL also entered into its first media partnership with eGG Network, the largest esports TV network in Southeast Asia and Australia that reaches approximately 100 million TV viewers.

Indonesian AI-based NLP platform Datasaur snags US$1M funding from GDP Ventures

Datasaur, Indonesia-based NLP platform that categorises phrases to increase the understanding of computer system towards language and context, has raised US$1 million in extended investment from GDP Venture. The round was also joined by several angel investors like Calvin French-Owen, Co-founder and CTO of Segment.

Also Read: AI-powered data labeling startup Datasaur secures seed funding

As reported by DailySocial, the company will use the funding to strengthen the platform capability, minimise the bias in text-labelling, and increase privacy and data security, something that’s regarded as a crucial aspect of AI-based NLP and used to be outsourced.

“We basically handle all kinds of NLP, including entity recognition, parts of speech, document labeling, coreference resolution, and dependency parsing. We’ve built the intelligence into our system to make labeling more efficient and accurate, allowing companies to manage all their labeling systems in one easy platform,” said Founder and CEO Datasaur Ivan Lee.

Datasaur team is joining the Y Combinator accelerator batch Winter 2020 in San Francisco.

hoolah nabs Series A funding led by VC firm Allectus to accelerate expansion plans

hoolah, a Singapore-based company that provides interest-free payment installments by partnering with a variety of merchants, has announced the closure of Series A funding, led by VC firm Allectus.

Joining the round are Singapore-based iGlobe Ventures, who participated in hoolah’s seed round, and new investors including Genting Ventures; Max Bittner, former group CEO of Lazada; and Tim Neville, CEO of FNZ.

According to hoolah, the fundraise allows it to double down on their recently announced launch in Malaysia and fuel further expansion. It also plans to enable the team to build an omnichannel solution – enabling customers to shop online and in-store.

Business

Insurtech startup CXA Group shares profitability effort behind downsizing decision

Singapore’s insurtech startup CXA Group is releasing dozens of its staff despite having an ongoing US$50 million Series C funding round, says a TechInAsia’s article. According to another article by The Business Times, CXA’s decision was fueled by concerns from its investors, who want to see a “clear path to profitability”, as told by chief executive Rosaline Koo.

Also Read: AI-powered insurtech startup CXA Group to set up tech hub in Ho Chi Minh City

One source in the original report specified that the startup plans to retrench about 40 staff in the engineering, product development, and marketing departments. However, Koo said that only 12 staff in Singapore, out of a 319 regional team, have been laid off, mainly in marketing and other roles that involved “manual processing”, which have been automated, and there will be no further cuts.

The startup also states its effort in white-labelling its software that made the decision to let go some staff is to be expected, while other layoffs had to do with performance issues.

CXA so far has raised US$58 million from backers including HSBC, Singtel Innov8, the Singapore Economic Development Board’s investment arm EDBI, and B Capital Group. The startup is currently building up a tech hub in Vietnam and has hired 70 developers there.

Picture Credit: hoolah

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Afternoon News Roundup: Singaporean tech entertainment firm AnyMind raises US$26.4M Series B

Singaporean tech entertainment firm AnyMind raises US$26.4M Series B

AnyMind, a company started by Kosuke Sogo and Otohiko Kozutsumi, announced today it has secured US$26.4 million in Series B funding from Japan Post Capital and existing investors. The total capital raised to date is USD$62.3 million.

Already existing in 11 markets in Asia, the newly-raised capital will be used by the Singapore-based firm to scale its business and expand into India and the Middle East.

The group runs across three industries — entertainment technology, marketing technology and HR technology.

AnyMind Group is the parent company of AdAsia Holdings, TalentMind and CastingAsia.

Malaysia’s DoctorOnCall announces strategic partnership with Merchantrade Money

Malaysian digital health platform DoctorOnCall has partnered with money service business Merchantrade Money to expand user base, according to mobihealthnews.

Merchantrade Money application users simply have to click on “talk to a doctor” and “e-pharmacy,” to get a consultation.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: 500 Startups invests in e-sports platform ESPL; Indonesia’s Datasaur secures US$1M funding

“We believe this initiative will provide a growing number of our customers with better access to healthcare services and address any urgent medical needs conveniently and quickly. Our users could be overseas or in remote areas, therefore having DoctorOnCall directly on Merchantrade Money will give them the convenience and timely medical care they need, wherever they are,” said Ramasamy K. Veeran, Founder of Merchantrade Asia.

Oyo confirms 5000 layoffs globally as it aims to restructure 

Indian hospitality giant Oyo confirms layoffs of over 5000 employees globally, according to Kr Asia.

“The worldwide overhaul was in full swing. By the time our restructuring process is complete, OYO will have over 25,000 employees worldwide,” Founder Ritesh Agarwal told Bloomberg.

“In our previous phase, we added a lot of properties to our platform and built the brand and mindshare. Our first focus of 2020 is growth with profitability, ” he added.

The Gurugram-based startup claims to have 1.2 million rooms across 40,000 properties in over 80 countries.

 

Image Credit:  Karla Rivera

 

 

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Can mobile apps be hacked? Yes, they can.

The good news is, they can be protected

Verimatrix

We’ve all heard the worst of it: “WhatsApp hacked!” “Airline hacked!” “Bank fined!” Mobile app hacks are becoming increasingly common — it takes a hacker less than 5 minutes to break open a mobile app and get access to your source code, which can be used to launch attacks on your server infrastructure and on your ERP and databases, steal any intellectual property in the app itself, and also spread malware through fake apps pretending to be yours.

The good news is that your apps can be protected, even without dedicated security engineers in your team. Using the same technology as used by the world’s leading technology, banking, retail, and media companies, for services that go as low as $250 a month, you can equip your apps with formidable security.

The future may be mobile, but so are the threats

Most companies are going “mobile-first” for well-understood reasons. In several countries, a mobile device may be the first or only connection that an end-user has to the Internet. It’s not just consumer apps: the immediacy and pervasiveness of access to corporate information are driving enterprises to expose their operations through internal apps too, all of which make mobile apps a critical threat vector to your organization’s cybersecurity.

Particularly when it takes a hacker just 5 minutes (sometimes even less) to break open a mobile app and get access to the app’s source code. And, this bears repetition: once the hacker has access to your source code, they can use the knowledge of how your app works to attack the company’s servers, launch man-in-the-middle attacks, steal valuable intellectual property — especially critical for app-centric industries such as gaming, retail, and tech innovators —, copy your code to create derivatives of your app and your business, and even launch malware through your brand by pretending to be your app (this even happened to WhatsApp).

Digital security at the palm of your hands

Fortunately, the technology exists that can stop these attacks dead in their tracks by making it so exponentially hard for a hacker to reverse engineer your app that he moves on to a softer target equipped with a less secure system.

These technologies include strong obfuscation and anti-tampering, including the ability to optionally prevent an app from being run on jailbroken/rooted devices. If you have an in-house security team, they can use these technologies to protect your mobile apps, to protect libraries that you might be distributing, and even protect firmware on hardware devices, with a very fine level of control over how the security is targeted at different parts of your app. And if you do not have a security team, now you can use automated tools such as www.ProtectMyApp.com by Verimatrix that do all the heavy lifting for you for as little as $250 per month.

One of the globally leading companies in this space is the San Diego company Verimatrix, which helps keeps apps safe for world-leaders in the retail, banking, entertainment, automotive, and government sectors. In fact, Verimatrix currently protects over 2 billion apps and devices in 113 countries. To learn more, please reach out to Varun at varora@verimatrix.com and also download a whitepaper at www.verimatrix.com/downloads/whitepapers/the-wild-wild-west-of-mobile-security

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