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Bitcoin prices fluctuated significantly during the week ending 29th April, reaching a yearly high of $470 before falling below $440.

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Banks are continually taking steps to enhance security, and Wells Fargo just took a big leap forward.

Wells Fargo and Canadian branchless bank Tangerine have announced that they will start using a new biometric technology called eyeprint authentication from tech startup EyeVerify.

The technology creates a digital map of a person's eye through a smartphone camera by analyzing unique details such as blood vessels. A user then logs in by holding the camera up to his or her eye, and the software matches their eye to the stored blueprint.

This greatly enhances security for the consumer because only that person could log into the account. It would also be more convenient because it would eliminate the need for the user to remember and enter complex passwords.

Wells Fargo intends to integrate the technology shortly for commercial customers to authenticate their mobile bank accounts, while Tangerine has already included it in the newest iteration of its iOS app that released this week.

Wells Fargo participated in EyeVerify's $6 million funding round in 2014 and helped mentor the startup as part of its accelerator program, reports American Banker.

The implementation of this retinal scan technology, as well the growing adoption of biometric technology to improve user security, indicates that 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 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, Business Insider's premium research service, 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 »

Deloitte has hacked together a product that uses Facebook Messenger to upload warranties to a blockchain and buy insurance after the purchase.

This is part 3 of CCN’s “Peace & Stability Through the Blockchain” Series. For part 1, click here. For part 2, click here. So far, we’ve gone over the precedent some of the multinational corporations exploring blockchain technology have set historically about promoting peace through their work. In part 2, we look at the ways […]

The post Peace & Stability Through The Blockchain: Government appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The Lightning Network may well be Bitcoin’s primary solution to the issue of scalability, but many skeptics believe there are unresolved...

The post Does the Lightning Network Threaten Bitcoin’s Censorship Resistance? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

IBM today announced a new framework for securely operating blockchain networks, as well as new services on the IBM Cloud that meet stringent...

The post IBM Launches Blockchain Cloud Services and Releases Hyperledger Code on Bluemix appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Timo Hanke, a mathematical researcher and cryptocurrency expert, in collaboration with Sergio Demian Lerner, a renowned security expert, has...

The post Algorithmic Improvements Give Bitcoin Mining an AsicBoost appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin price has slowly gained alttude in a non-committal rise to $450. This analyst keeps questioning why the market compulsively buys price up when the technicals are pointing down. Some say that perhaps the market is trading the expectation of a block reward rally. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3-hour delay. Read […]

The post Bitcoin Trading The Block Reward Halving appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The government of the Isle of Man is looking to plug a gap in its gambling regulatory structure as it relates to bitcoin and digital currencies.

Supporters of MMM, which is accused of being a Ponzi scheme, marched in Soweto, South Africa in celebration of the Financial Freedom Awareness campaign, coinciding with South Africa’s Freedom Day, according to Independent Online (IOL), a South African news source.   MMM Global is under investigation by The Hawks, South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime […]

The post South Africans Supporters of Alleged Global Bitcoin Scam MMM March On appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

While many people have heard of the crypto currency called bitcoin, what?s more interesting is the underpinning technology that makes bitcoin work, known as blockchain. Industry analysts are calling blockchain ?revolutionary.?

The hacking heist of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank demonstrates the vulnerability of many banks’ existing financial security platforms that cry for blockchain-based security. Investigators at BAE Systems, a U.K.-based defense contractor, believe the attackers hacked into the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) financial platform that provides the heart of the global […]

The post $81 Million Cyberheist Underscores Need for Blockchain Security appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

 Bitcoin may still be the most famous application of blockchain technology, but the distributed, encrypted database architecture is now being applied to a range of other services, from different kinds of (non Bitcoin) financial transactions to anything else that requires secure tracking. And today, IBM laid out its claim for some of that new business: the IT giant announced a new set of… Read More

Bitcoin exchange Coinbase has announced that it now enabled instant purchase of bitcoin via debit cards. The feature is available to all users in the United States. Coinbase users in the United States will, like their European counterparts, have the means to instantly buy bitcoin with debit cards. The feature rollout comes after an initial […]

The post Coinbase Enables Instant Bitcoin Purchase via US Debit Cards appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Japan’s first blockchain industry organization, the Blockchain Collaborative Consortium (BCCC), sees 34 companies as founding members coming together. BCCC will help promote blockchain solutions and innovation to the public as well as working with other blockchain organizations from around the world. The likes of Microsoft Japan and Ethereum-coder collective ConsenSys together with an array of […]

The post Japan Sees a New Blockchain Industry Consortium Established appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin Press Release: OpenLedger has added Ethereum based gold backed crypto-token DigixDAO asset (DGD), allowing users to trade DGD for Ethereum, Bitcoin and other digital assets on its decentralized trading platform. April 28, 2016 – OpenLedger, the CCEDK owned transparent decentralized exchange now allows users to trade DigixDAO (DGD) assets on its platform. The DigixDAOcryptocurrency […]

The post Gold Struck on OpenLedger With Ethereum Based DigixDAO asset (DGD) appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin Press Release: Well established Bitcoin exchange CEX.IO enables instant withdrawals to Visa and MasterCard in US dollars, Euro and Russian Ruble. April 28th, 2016, London, UK — CEX.IO Bitcoin exchange announced today the launch of instant USD, EUR, and RUB withdrawals to payment cards. With this new feature, CEX.IO successfully completed the full circle […]

The post Popular Bitcoin Exchange CEX.IO Launches Instant Withdrawals to Visa/MasterCard 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.

US-based processor Vantiv announced what it called an “exceptional” start to 2016 after posting a 15% annual revenue increase and strong growth across segments in its Q1 earnings report held late Tuesday.

For context, Vantiv is the second-largest merchant acquirer and top PIN debit acquirer, according to the Nilson Report.

Vantiv emphasized two segments that it sees as particularly important for ongoing growth:

• Integrated payments: Integrated payments, including e-commerce, contributed to Vantiv’s growth. That’s partly due to Vantiv completing the integration of independent software vendor (ISV) Mercury Payment Solutions, which it acquired in Q2 2015, ahead of schedule. That pushed over 100,000 merchants to Mercury’s platform in Q1 and will continue to bolster the strong performance of high-growth business segments. Mercury could also help Vantiv move into new verticals, like healthcare, and build up its small business portfolio.
• Small businesses: Like many of its peers, Vantiv continues to push to grow its market share and presence among smaller businesses. Growth in that segment was a major driver of the firm’s strong Q1 growth. And Vantiv continues to grow small business initiatives. The firm’s Mercury integration will allow it to roll out OptBlue, an Amex initiative that makes it simpler for merchants to accept American Express, to many of its partners, which could bolster growth. And it’s also working on growing small business relationships — Vantiv recently launched a new small business community, called Vantiv BizBuz, which will give small business owners the opportunity to connect with one another and access resources. 

Vantiv's small-business push, in particular, is indicative of a trend in the payments industry. Some of the firm's peers, including Ingenico and First Data, are seeing small businesses as a major growth driver.

That's likely because a lot of small businesses are beginning to accept card and online payments, and because the market for small-business processing remains relatively fragmented with no clear market leader. That creates significant entry opportunity, making smaller merchants a compelling population for processors to chase if they want to grow their share of the market.

This is just one piece of the rapidly evolving payments ecosystem, an increasingly complex series of transactions and players that is changing with each passing day.

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 »