​Kalin Anev Janse, secretary general and a member of the management board of the European Stability Mechanism has written an excellent article exploring whether Fintech can make the world more inclusive.

Kailin makes a number of interesting points:

• Financial inclusion – making banking services accessible and affordable to everyone globally. Technology-based financial services have propelled innovation to “bank the unbanked” making daily financial operations accessible and user friendly for almost everyone – especially people who had no access to banks before.
• Emerging markets like China, Kenya and Indonesia are leapfrogging the developed world. So – how is fintech making the world more inclusive?
• People around the world have experienced first-hand the convenience that digitalised or mobile-based financial services have brought to our daily work and life. 
• There has been massive adoption of fintech in China with mobile payment widely used in China as an everyday payment method [NB WeChat is used on a daily basis to order and pay a taxi, simple lunchbox, buying event tickets and monitoring your health while you sleep - Poster: My first hand experience).
• Fintech adoption is somewhat slower in Europe.
• Financial inclusion has been a recurring theme of financial sector reforms that the IMF and World Bank and is especially important in emerging markets, like Asia, Africa and South America; where it encourages access to formal financial services at affordable costs that can boost an economy’s overall growth and welfare. Often those targeted – families and small- and mid-sized companies – have either no or only very limited access to financial services. 
• To speed financial inclusion, the World Bank and the IMF launched the Bali Fintech Agenda comprising of 12 high-level principles to guide member states in elaborating appropriate policies to harness the benefits of what fintech can offer to bank the unbanked while mitigating any inherent risks. 

​Encourage you to read the full article at the link below. 

Source: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-fintech-make-the-world-more-inclusive/. Consider following the author on twitter @whartonknows 

Posted by Peter Oakes (www.peteroakes.com / Twitter @oakeslaw @US_Fintech @FintechUK_HQ @FintechIreland)
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See also www.UKFintech.com www.FintechIreland.com

The United States biggest banks have grown substantially. The top 15 largest banks now hold a combined total of $13.7 trillion in assets.  And the top 10 banks' share is approaching 80% of that figure, at $10 trillion.  Not only does size matter, the concentration of assets held increases exponentially as you move up the food chain.

On our home page, we noted that, the value of the top 10 US FinTech companies was $88.1bn. With the top 5 US Banks being 4 times larger than the next 5 and those 2nd tier banks being almost 3 times the size of the top 10 Fintechs,  this poses an interesting question. "How can small incumbent bank compete with both these existing giants and the continual onslaught of neobanks, challenger banks and non-banks offering banking services"? ​

Source: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/biggest-banks-in-america/.  Consider following the author, Amanda Dixon, on twitter at https://twitter.com/amandaadixon


​Posted by Peter Oakes (www.peteroakes.com / Twitter @oakeslaw @US_Fintech @FintechUK_HQ @FintechIreland)
#FintechUS #USFintech
See also www.UKFintech.com www.FintechIreland.com