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Frequent bitcoin- and blockchain-focused investment firm Digital Currency Group now sees Western Union as an investor in a new funding round. Money-transfer giant Western Union is Digital Currency Group’s newest investor, in a new funding round. Digital Currency Group (DCG) is also welcoming new investors to the firm in Beijing-based HCM International Co., a subsidiary […]

The post Bitcoin-Centric Investor Digital Currency Group Sees Investment from Western Union appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

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Apple Pay launched in October 2014, and the tech giant provided an update on the mobile wallet's progress in its first-quarter earnings call.

CEO Tim Cook noted that Apple Pay is bringing in one million new users per week and that transaction volumes are "five times higher" than at this point one year ago. However, the company has not seen "any meaningful revenue impact from Apple Pay yet," said CFO Luca Maestri. The CFO expects the increasing transaction volume to potentially make Apple Pay more valuable in the future.

One advantage Apple Pay is slowly gaining is widespread acceptance. Approximately 10 million contactless-enabled terminals around the globe, and 2.5 million of those are in the U.S. (up from just 2 million in February 2016). This wider acceptance should be a catalyst for growth.

Hesitance about Apple Pay's acceptance has been a significant barrier to testing the mobile wallet, but wider acceptance could create user loyalty and higher payment volume per user.

Apple also has some plans on the horizon that would make Apple Pay more integral to it's overall business. The company recently debuted Apple Pay in China, Australia, Canada, the U.K., and Singapore, which could spur user growth.

But keep in mind that only American Express users can access the service in these locations, and those users make up a small portion of the total market. If Apple were to sign deals with larger issuers, then Apple Pay would grow internationally.

Furthermore, reports say Apple is considering integrating in-browser and peer-to-peer (P2P) payments into Apple Pay, which should draw in more users and make existing users more loyal. In-browser payments, in particular, should give Apple Pay an important source of revenue if the company can take a piece of the interchange fee from these transactions.

Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, analysts at BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, have compiled a detailed report on the payments ecosystem that drills into the industry to explain how a broad range of transactions are processed, including prepaid and store cards, as well as revealing which types of companies are in the best and worst position to capitalize on the latest industry trends.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• 2016 will be a watershed year for the payments industry. Payments companies are improving security, expanding their mobile offerings, and building commerce capabilities that will give consumers a more compelling reason to make purchases using digital devices.
• Payments is an extremely complex industry. To understand the next big digital opportunity lies, it's critical to understand how the traditional credit- and debit-processing chain works and what roles acquirers, processors, issuing banks, card networks, independent sales organizations, gateways, and software and hardware providers play.
• Alternative technologies could disrupt the processing ecosystem. Devices ranging from refrigerators to smartwatches now feature payment capabilities, which will spur changes in consumer payment behaviors. Likewise, blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies Bitcoin, could one day change how consumer card payments are verified.

In full, the report:

• Uncovers the key themes and trends affecting the payments industry in 2016 and beyond.
• Gives a detailed description of the stakeholders involved in a payment transaction, along with hardware and software providers.
• Offers diagrams and infographics explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step.
• Provides charts on our latest forecasts, key company growth, survey results, and more.
• Analyzes the alternative technologies, including blockchain, which could further disrupt the ecosystem.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the payments ecosystem.

Join the conversation about this story »

For cryptocurrency enthusiasts, there are quite a few options where they can do business in regards to trading and exchanging one type of digital currency for another via a digital exchange. Some exchanges offer sophisticated trading options with limiting, stop order and more. However, for most exchanges, the process of what goes on between trading […]

The post The Inner Workings of Decentralized Crypto Exchange EtherEx appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

One of Bitcoin's most important security features, a crucial property that makes the system trustless, is its open source nature. Because...

The post What Is Gitian Building? How Bitcoin’s Security Processes Became a Model for the Open Source Community appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Blockchain and digital health services could be a perfect match for each other across a variety of applications. From distributed...

The post Blockchain Smart Contracts: A Hyper-Deflationary Force for Health Care Delivery appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin price has recovered from sell-off lows at $434 and 2800 CNY today. Can the market bounce price through resistance and continue to new highs? Or has yesterday’s lack of commitment at a critical moment cut bitcoin’s price wings? This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3-hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not […]

The post Bitcoin Price Wings Cut By Market appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Although Bitcoin is more than 7 years old, making payments on the network is still a rather cumbersome task. With a user interface that...

The post BIP 75 Simplifies Bitcoin Wallets for the Everyday User appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The undisclosed round of investment brings together incumbents interested in the opportunities provided by Bitcoin's blockchain technology with startups working in the space.

EdgeVerve Systems’ newly-introduced Blockchain Framework furthers the adoption of blockchain technology by the global financial services sector. A subsidiary of Infosys, which offers the Infosys Finacle universal banking solution suite, EdgeVerve introduced the product at the Infosys Confluence global client summit in San Francisco, Calif. EdgeVerve developed the framework to deliver value-generating solutions based on […]

The post Infosys’ EdgeVerve Launches Blockchain Framework for Financial Services appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

At a Blockchain Conference in San Francisco last month, a spat between Tone Vays, Head of Research at Bitcoin news portal Brave New Coin, and Safe Cash’s Chris Kitze, highlighted the paradigm shift in the blockchain technology industry. Whereas historically Bitcoiners have often championed Bitcoin as a way to undermine government and banks, a new breed […]

The post “Blockchain” Led Paradigm Shift From Anti-to Pro-Establishment Shocks Bitcoin Community appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The BI Intelligence Content Marketing Team covers news & research we think you would find valuable.

We’ve entered the most profound era of change for financial services companies since the 1970s brought us index mutual funds, discount brokers and ATMs.

No firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new financial technology (“fintech”) revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world:  The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

• Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees

• Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful

• Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo-Advisors: Robo-advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.

After months of researching and reporting this important trend, Business Insider Intelligence has put together an essential briefing that explains the new landscape, identifies the ripest areas for disruption, and highlights the some of the most exciting new companies. These new players have the potential to become the next Visa, Paypal or Charles Schwab because they have the potential to transform important areas of the financial services industry like:

• Retail banking

• Lending and Financing

• Payments and Transfers
• 
Wealth and Asset Management

• Markets and Exchanges

• Insurance

• Blockchain Transactions


If you work in any of these sectors, it’s important for you to understand how the fintech revolution will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any part of the digital economy, you’ll want to know how you can exploit these new technologies to make your employer more efficient, flexible and profitable.

Among the big picture insights you’ll get from this new report, titled The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry:

• Why financial technology is so disruptive to financial services—it will soon change the nature of almost every financial activity, from banking to payments to wealth management.
• The basic conflict will be between old firms and new—startups are re-imagining financial services processes from top to bottom, while incumbent financial services firms are trying to keep up with new products of their own.
• Both sides face serious obstacles—traditional banks and financial services firms are investing heavily in innovation, but leveraging their investments is difficult with so much invested in legacy systems and profit centers.
• Meanwhile, startups are struggling to navigate a rapidly-changing regulatory landscape and must scale up quickly with limited resources.
• The blockchain is a wild card that could completely overhaul financial services. Both major banks and startups around the world are exploring the technology behind the blockchain, which stores and records Bitcoin transactions. This technology could lower the cost of many financial activities to near-zero and could wipe away many traditional banking activities completely.

This exclusive report also:

• Explains the main growth drivers of the exploding fintech ecosystem.
• Frames the challenges and opportunities faced by incumbents and startups.
• Breaks down global and regional fintech investments, including which regions are the most significant and which are poised for the highest growth.
• Reveals which two financial services are garnering the most investment, and are therefore likely to be transformed first and fastest by fintech
• Explains why blockchain technology is critically important to banks and startups, and assesses which players stand to gain the most from it.
• Explores the financial sectors facing disruption and breaks them down in terms of investments, vulnerabilities and growth opportunities.
• And much more.

The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry is how you get the full story on the fintech revolution.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the fintech revolution, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of financial technology.

Join the conversation about this story »

BTC-e, a European exchange, has added bitcoin-based trading pairs on Ethereum and Dash, extending the trading possibilities for these coins, according to Finance Magnates. Ethereum and Dash are the second and fifth largest cryptocurrencies, respectively, based on market capitalization. BTC-e caters to retail forex traders. Through a partnership with FXOpen, a forex broker, BTC-e was the […]

The post BTC-e Exchange Adds Dash And Ethereum Bitcoin Trading Pairs appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

 Anyone who has been a long-time user of Coinbase knows that the cryptocurrency startup hasn’t exactly always made it easy to buy Bitcoin. In the early days you had to link your U.S bank account, verify it via two small deposits, and still wait up to five days for the Bitcoin to be sent to your wallet each time you made a purchase. Then, the company added instant purchases (which… Read More

Gaming and digital distribution platform Steam will now accept bitcoin payments from users around the world, a feature enabled by bitcoin payment processor BitPay.  After whispers, rumors, and leaks that leads to the inevitable inclusion of a global currency for a global marketplace, Valve’s Steam, the biggest PC gaming platform and distributor in the world […]

The post Steam Level Up! Bitcoin Accepted appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Industry Insider" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

First Data, the largest US-based processor, announced solid growth in Q1 2016 — its second quarter as a public company — despite less-than-satisfactory gains in its Global Business Solutions (GBS) business segment.

The firm’s GBS segment grew 2% on a constant currency basis but saw revenues from North America remain flat or decrease. And those declines are dragging growth, because North America is the firm’s largest segment.

First Data is concentrating on US small business services as part of a plan to bolster its North American revenues and accelerate company growth overall. That’s because the firm believes that attrition within its small business portfolio was a major drag in this segment. First Data believes that its North American business will begin to improve in the second half of 2016.

The firm plans to invest in its small business merchant segment in several ways:

• Value-added services: Most importantly, the firm plans to pour resources into bolstering its small business-oriented products, like Clover, its mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) product. By strengthening small business products and adding e-commerce and business management tools, First Data can make businesses more loyal, but can also increase its own fee revenue by giving merchants the tools to improve efficiency and increase their daily transaction volume.
• Bank partnerships: The firm also plans to “penetrate solutions in branches,” according to CEO Frank Bisignaro. That could help banks partnered with First Data offer its services more easily to merchant clients. For example, the processor recently partnered with First Tennessee Bank in order to gain a wide base of small merchants to market its services to. 
• Easier acquisition: First Data plans to grow its digital strategy to make it easier to acquire merchant partners online. The firm also plans to sharpen its focus on high lifetime value clients while broadening its overall reach when considering new merchants.
• Simplifying access: The processor plans to expand online self-help capabilities and make client interactions easier and more straightforward. Making First Data into a more helpful and accessible merchant partner could play a significant role in lowering the firm’s attrition rate.

The way we pay is changing rapidly, as the payments ecosystem continues to transform thanks to companies such as First Data.

Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, analysts at BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, have compiled a detailed report on the payments ecosystem that drills into the industry to explain how a broad range of transactions are processed, including prepaid and store cards, as well as revealing which types of companies are in the best and worst position to capitalize on the latest industry trends.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• 2016 will be a watershed year for the payments industry. Payments companies are improving security, expanding their mobile offerings, and building commerce capabilities that will give consumers a more compelling reason to make purchases using digital devices.
• Payments is an extremely complex industry. To understand the next big digital opportunity lies, it's critical to understand how the traditional credit- and debit-processing chain works and what roles acquirers, processors, issuing banks, card networks, independent sales organizations, gateways, and software and hardware providers play.
• Alternative technologies could disrupt the processing ecosystem. Devices ranging from refrigerators to smartwatches now feature payment capabilities, which will spur changes in consumer payment behaviors. Likewise, blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies Bitcoin, could one day change how consumer card payments are verified.

In full, the report:

• Uncovers the key themes and trends affecting the payments industry in 2016 and beyond.
• Gives a detailed description of the stakeholders involved in a payment transaction, along with hardware and software providers.
• Offers diagrams and infographics explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step.
• Provides charts on our latest forecasts, key company growth, survey results, and more.
• Analyzes the alternative technologies, including blockchain, which could further disrupt the ecosystem.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the payments ecosystem.

Join the conversation about this story »

Hello! Here's what you need to know on Thursday.

1. US Senator Ted Cruz announced he would name former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as his running mate if he wins the Republican presidential nomination. "This is an individual you can trust to lead this country no matter what might happen," Cruz said at a rally Wednesday.

2. Facebook crushed its Q1 earnings, sending the stock up nearly 9% if after-hours trading.

3. Elon Musk's SpaceX announced that it plans to send a Dragon spacecraft to Mars as soon as 2018. The mission would lay the groundwork eventually landing humans on Mars.

4. Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday that China will not allow chaos and war to break out on the Korean peninsula. China is North Korea's sole major ally.

5. Vietnam is being crippled by its worst drought in nearly a century, which could lead to a serious reduction in exports of major goods.

6. The "golden age" of stock market returns is over, according to new research from the McKinsey Global Institute. That means investors will have to save more, retire later, or live less comfortably during retirement.

7. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman and a group of Valeant executives got grilled in one of the most brutal US Senate hearings ever. They were answering questions about the company's practice of buying drugs and jacking up their prices.

8. Venezuela announced that millions of officials will now work only Mondays and Tuesdays, taking the rest of the week off in a bid to save electricity.

9. Japan will begin tests to measure the fuel economy of vehicles made by Mitsubishi, who admitted last week to manipulating mileage test data.

10. New York City police brought charges brought against 120 gang members, described as the biggest gang takedown ever in the city.

And finally ...

Here's how much time people spend on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger every day.

Join the conversation about this story »

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This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Industry Insider" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

The arrival of the age of fintech is about to shake up the financial services world as we know it.

Traditional powerhouses are already trying to figure out ways to co-exist with startups that are disrupting aging models. Look no further than the rise of mobile and digital banking and the declining relevance of brick-and-mortar banks, particularly among millennials, for evidence of that fact.

But it's not just banks that are trying to conquer the fintech space.

Amazon is about to try its hand in this market, as the e-commerce giant's head of payments, Patrick Gauthier, recently announced that the company is considering making some fintech acquisitions as valuations in the space start to decline and fintech becomes a more affordable investment.

This would be a logical progression for Amazon, which already has a significant and active user base. Amazon has been experiencing increased growth tied to payments, as its payments unit has 23 million active users and has recorded 200% year-over-year growth in merchants adding the "Pay with Amazon" buy button to their online stores.

There is also precedent for Amazon to make such a move. Chinese e-commerce giant Alipay has more than 450 million monthly active users and has more than 50% of the online payments market in China. So Amazon could be on the path to building up a similar type of momentum with its own customers.

Fintech acquisitions would also make Amazon more competitive with other checkout services such as Apple Pay and Visa Checkout. This could be crucial in the next few years, as BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, forecasts that mobile commerce will make up 45% of all U.S. e-commerce retail sales by 2020.

As we watch Amazon's plan unfold, it's clear that no firm will be immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new fintech revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world: The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

• Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees

• Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful

• Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo-Advisors: Robo-advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.

After months of researching and reporting this important trend, Evan Bakker, research analyst for BI Intelligence has put together an essential report on the fintech ecosystem that explains the new landscape, identifies the ripest areas for disruption, and highlights the some of the most exciting new companies. These new players have the potential to become the next Visa, Paypal or Charles Schwab because they have the potential to transform important areas of the financial services industry like:

• Retail banking

• Lending and Financing

• Payments and Transfers
• 
Wealth and Asset Management

• Markets and Exchanges

• Insurance

• Blockchain Transactions


If you work in any of these sectors, it’s important for you to understand how the fintech revolution will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any part of the digital economy, you’ll want to know how you can exploit these new technologies to make your employer more efficient, flexible and profitable.

Among the big picture insights you'll get from The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry:

• Why financial technology is so disruptive to financial services—it will soon change the nature of almost every financial activity, from banking to payments to wealth management.
• The basic conflict will be between old firms and new—startups are re-imagining financial services processes from top to bottom, while incumbent financial services firms are trying to keep up with new products of their own.
• Both sides face serious obstacles—traditional banks and financial services firms are investing heavily in innovation, but leveraging their investments is difficult with so much invested in legacy systems and profit centers.
• Meanwhile, startups are struggling to navigate a rapidly-changing regulatory landscape and must scale up quickly with limited resources.
• The blockchain is a wild card that could completely overhaul financial services. Both major banks and startups around the world are exploring the technology behind the blockchain, which stores and records Bitcoin transactions. This technology could lower the cost of many financial activities to near-zero and could wipe away many traditional banking activities completely.

This exclusive report also:

• Explains the main growth drivers of the exploding fintech ecosystem.
• Frames the challenges and opportunities faced by incumbents and startups.
• Breaks down global and regional fintech investments, including which regions are the most significant and which are poised for the highest growth.
• Reveals which two financial services are garnering the most investment, and are therefore likely to be transformed first and fastest by fintech
• Explains why blockchain technology is critically important to banks and startups, and assesses which players stand to gain the most from it.
• Explores the financial sectors facing disruption and breaks them down in terms of investments, vulnerabilities and growth opportunities.
• And much more.

The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry is how you get the full story on the fintech revolution.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the fintech revolution, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of financial technology.

Join the conversation about this story »

Bitcoin prices dropped below $450 late yesterday and then continued to fall below $440 as of press time.

The BI Intelligence Content Marketing Team covers news & research we think you would find valuable.

We’ve entered the most profound era of change for financial services companies since the 1970s brought us index mutual funds, discount brokers and ATMs.

No firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new financial technology (“fintech”) revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world:  The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

• Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees

• Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful

• Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo-Advisors: Robo-advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.

After months of researching and reporting this important trend, Business Insider Intelligence has put together an essential briefing that explains the new landscape, identifies the ripest areas for disruption, and highlights the some of the most exciting new companies. These new players have the potential to become the next Visa, Paypal or Charles Schwab because they have the potential to transform important areas of the financial services industry like:

• Retail banking

• Lending and Financing

• Payments and Transfers
• 
Wealth and Asset Management

• Markets and Exchanges

• Insurance

• Blockchain Transactions


If you work in any of these sectors, it’s important for you to understand how the fintech revolution will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any part of the digital economy, you’ll want to know how you can exploit these new technologies to make your employer more efficient, flexible and profitable.

Among the big picture insights you’ll get from this new report, titled The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry:

• Why financial technology is so disruptive to financial services—it will soon change the nature of almost every financial activity, from banking to payments to wealth management.
• The basic conflict will be between old firms and new—startups are re-imagining financial services processes from top to bottom, while incumbent financial services firms are trying to keep up with new products of their own.
• Both sides face serious obstacles—traditional banks and financial services firms are investing heavily in innovation, but leveraging their investments is difficult with so much invested in legacy systems and profit centers.
• Meanwhile, startups are struggling to navigate a rapidly-changing regulatory landscape and must scale up quickly with limited resources.
• The blockchain is a wild card that could completely overhaul financial services. Both major banks and startups around the world are exploring the technology behind the blockchain, which stores and records Bitcoin transactions. This technology could lower the cost of many financial activities to near-zero and could wipe away many traditional banking activities completely.

This exclusive report also:

• Explains the main growth drivers of the exploding fintech ecosystem.
• Frames the challenges and opportunities faced by incumbents and startups.
• Breaks down global and regional fintech investments, including which regions are the most significant and which are poised for the highest growth.
• Reveals which two financial services are garnering the most investment, and are therefore likely to be transformed first and fastest by fintech
• Explains why blockchain technology is critically important to banks and startups, and assesses which players stand to gain the most from it.
• Explores the financial sectors facing disruption and breaks them down in terms of investments, vulnerabilities and growth opportunities.
• And much more.

The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry is how you get the full story on the fintech revolution.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the fintech revolution, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of financial technology.

Join the conversation about this story »

Both high-end gaming PCs and bitcoin mining rigs require an awful lot of power to operate at their best, so this next bit of news is a pretty natural fit: You can load your Steam wallet using Silk Road's favorite currency. Cryptocurrency payment proc...

Vietnam's breadbasket southwestern region has been hit by the worst drought in 90 years, badly damaging the nation's economy.

The Southeast Asian country saw a huge slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter as agriculture output dropped sharply. GDP growth slipped to 5.6% year-over-year in the first quarter, down from 6.7% in 2015, according to statistics cited by a Capital Economics team led by Gareth Leader. 

The drought, partially attributed to this year's El Niño, could also lead to a serious reduction in exports of major goods produced in the region, including rice, seafood, and coffee, according to Capital Economics.

Water levels in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, a region that accounts for 50% of Vietnam's rice and fruit production, 90% of its rice exports, and 60% of shrimp and fish exports, are at their lowest levels since 1926.

Moreover, a report from the United Nations found that nearly 393,000 acres of rice in Vietnam have been lost, and an additional 1.24 million will likely be damaged by mid-2016. Those losses have already had huge effects on production: The first quarter of 2016 saw rice output fall by 6.2% year-over-year, which reduced Vietnam's total agricultural production by 2.7%, according to figures cited by Bloomberg.

And the immediate future for rice doesn't look much brighter. The chief executive officer of Intimex Group, a Vietnamese exporter of agricultural products, told Bloomberg that rice exports from Vietnam could drop by 10% this year.

Not only does this affect the livelihoods of the Vietnamese farmers, but it also affects the biggest buyers of Vietnamese agricultural goods.

“People in Indonesia and the Philippines will go hungry if the Thais and Vietnamese don’t produce enough rice,” Richard Cronin, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, told Bloomberg.

“This is a preview of the longer-term effect of development and climate change to the Mekong Delta.”

Notably, this drought comes at a time when some analysts are getting a bit concerned about Vietnam's growth overall — not just in the agriculture sector.  Although Vietnam saw the third fastest growth in Asia in 2015 — behind only India (7.3%) and China (6.8%) — and the government set an ambitious 6.7% growth target for 2016, analysts have a few concerns.

"The current pace of credit growth is unsustainable [and] worryingly the central bank is targeting faster credit growth this year," noted the Capital Economics team. "Meanwhile, although the dong has remained stable against the dollar since the start of the year, a low level of foreign exchange reserves means the currency is vulnerable to shifts in investor sentiment."

In short, they noted, "there are questions over the sustainability of the current boom."

SEE ALSO: The 18 most 'miserable' countries in the world

Join the conversation about this story »

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