3/9/16: Fintech, Banking and Dinosaurs with Wings

Here is an interesting study from McKinsey on fintech role in facilitating banking sector adjustments to technological evolution and changes in consumer demand for banking services:
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk/our-insights/the-value-in-digitally-transforming-credit-risk-management?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck-oth-1608

The key here is that fintech is viewed by McKinsey as a core driver for changes in risk management. And the banks responses to fintech challenge are telling. Per McKinsey: “More recently, banks have begun to capture efficiency gains in the SME and commercial-banking segments by digitizing key steps of credit processes, such as the automation of credit decision engines.”

The potential for rewards from innovation  is substantial: “The automation of credit processes and the digitization of the key steps in the credit value chain can yield cost savings of up to 50 percent. The benefits of digitizing credit risk go well beyond even these improvements. Digitization can also protect bank revenue, potentially reducing leakage by 5 to 10 percent.”

McKinsey reference one example of improved efficiencies: “…by putting in place real-time credit decision making in the front line, banks reduce the risk of losing creditworthy clients to competitors as a result of slow approval processes.”

Blockchain technology offers several pathways to delivering significant gains for banks in the area of risk management:

• It is real-time transactions tracking mechanism which can be integrated into live systems of data analytics to reduce lags and costs in risk management;
• It is also the most secure form of data transmission to-date;
• It offers greater ability to automate individual loans portfolios on the basis of each client (irrespective of the client size); and 
• It provides potentially seamless integration of various sub-segments of lending portfolios, including loans originated in unsecured peer-to-peer lending venues and loans originated by the banks.

Note the impact matrix above.

Blockchain solutions, such as for example AID:Tech platform for payments facilitation, can offer tangible benefits across all three pillars of digital credit risk management process for a bank:

• Meeting customer demand for real-time decisions? Check. Self-service demand? Check. Integration with third parties’ platforms? Check. Dynamic risk-adjusted pricing and limits? Check
• Reduced cost of risk mitigation? Yes, especially in line with real-time analytics engines and monitoring efficiency
• Reduced operational costs? The entire reason for blockchain is lower transactions costs

What the above matrix is missing is the bullet point of radical innovation, such as, for example, offering not just better solutions, but cardinally new solutions. Example of this: predictive or forecast-based financing (see my earlier post on this http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2016/09/2916-forecast-based-financing-and.html).

A recent McKinsey report (http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/blockchain-in-insurance-opportunity-or-threat) attempted to map the same path for insurance industry, but utterly failed in respect of seeing the insurance model evolution forward beyond traditional insurance structuring (again, for example, FBF is not even mentioned in the report, nor does the report devote any attention to the blockchain capacity to facilitate predictive analytics-based insurance models). Tellingly, the same points are again missed in this month’s McKinsey report on digital innovation in insurance sector: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/making-digital-strategy-a-reality-in-insurance.

This might be due to the fact that McKinsey database is skewed to just 350 larger (by now legacy) blockchain platforms with little anchoring to current and future innovators in the space. In a world where technology evolves with the speed of blockchain disruption, one can’t be faulted for falling behind the curve by simply referencing already established offers.

Which brings us to the point of what really should we expect from fintech innovation taken beyond d simply tinkering on the margins of big legacy providers?

As those of you who follow my work know, I recently wrote about fintech disruption in the banking sector for the International Banker (see http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2016/06/13616-twin-tech-challenge-to.html). The role of fintech in providing back-office solutions in banking services is something that is undoubtedly worth exploring. However, it is also a dimension of innovation where banks are well-positioned to accept and absorb change. The real challenge lies within the areas of core financial services competition presented (for now only marginally) by the fintech. Once, however, the marginal innovation gains speed and breadth, traditional banking models will be severely stretched and the opening for fintech challengers in the sector will expand dramatically. The reason for this is simple: you can’t successfully transform a centuries-old business model to accommodate revolutionary change. You might bolt onto it few blows and whistles of new processes and new solutions. But that is hardly a herald of innovation.

At some point in evolution, dinosaurs with wings die out, and birds fly.

16/10/15: Finance@Google 2015

Few weeks back I was taking part in the Finance@Google 2015 conference covering a range of topics from the future trends in Financial Services to more current / shorter-term aspects of the markets for Financial Services (Banking, Insurance and Online Aggregators, amongst a range of other services).

Here are two videos of my presentations:

First: my presentation "Finance at the End of Old Norms" - link here.

Second: my interview "Excuse the Interruption: Financial Expert in the Spotlight" covering a wide range of questions relating to the evolution of Financial Services - link here.

11/5/2012: Ignoring that which almost happened?

In recent years, I am finding myself migrating more firmly toward behavioralist views on finance and economics. Not that this view, in my mind, is contradictory to the classes of models and logic I am accustomed to. It is rather an additional enrichment of them, adding toward completeness.

With this in mind - here's a fascinating new study.

How Near-Miss events Amplify or Attenuate Risky Decision Making, written by Catherine Tinsley, Robin Dillon and Matthew Cronin and published in April 2012 issue of Management Science studied the way people change their risk attitudes "in the aftermath of many natural and man-made disasters".

More specifically, "people often wonder why those affected were underprepared, especially when the disaster was the result of known or regularly occurring hazards (e.g., hurricanes). We study one contributing factor: prior near-miss experiences. Near misses are events that have some nontrivial expectation of ending in disaster but, by chance, do not."

The study shows that "when near misses are interpreted as disasters that did not occur, people illegitimately underestimate the danger of subsequent hazardous situations and make riskier decisions (e.g., choosing not to engage in mitigation activities for the potential hazard). On the other hand, if near misses can be recognized and interpreted as disasters that almost happened, this will counter the basic “near-miss” effect and encourage more mitigation. We illustrate the robustness of this pattern across populations with varying levels of real expertise with hazards and different hazard contexts (household evacuation for a hurricane, Caribbean cruises during hurricane season, and deep-water oil drilling). We conclude with ideas to help people manage and communicate about risk."

An interesting potential corollary to the study is that analytical conclusions formed ex post near misses (or in the wake of significant increases in the risk) matter to the future responses. Not only that, the above suggests that the conjecture that 'glass half-full' type of analysis should be preferred to 'glass half-empty' position might lead to a conclusion that an event 'did not occur' rather than that it 'almost happened'.

Fooling yourself into safety by promoting 'optimism' in interpreting reality might be a costly venture...