Anuroop Nair’s Post

💵  $1,500,000,000,000 💵 That's the worth of securities financing banks and institutions execute on private blockchains monthly! J.P. Morgan alone does $2 billion in volume daily on its private blockchain Onyx. The BFSI sector isn’t new to the blockchain phenomenon. Australian Bank Banco Santander was the first to use Ripple for international transfers in 2014. More than 100 banks and financial institutions use Ripple today! (Though I won’t consider Ripple to be a true blockchain, it is a good case study.) The question today is not how many? 100... 1,000... 10,000... The question today is also not of what kind? Public, private, or hybrid... The question today is, ‘IN WHAT WAY?’ The banking sector still operates with a primitive mindset where one tech/solution can successfully render only one or two use cases. The sector must realize that blockchain isn’t just a layer in the technology stack. It is an atmosphere, an ecosystem supplying the banking operations with the much-needed synergy, be it be ✔Faster cross-border transactions  ✔Data immutability and security  ✔Composable banking solutions  ✔Fraud prevention  ✔Decentralized database ✔And more Blockchain can eliminate the multiplicity of layers in the tech stack to provide a single source of truth for all things banking. Ascend Defi Labs is building next-gen composable banking solutions based on blockchain. Interested to know more about the project? Hit me up in the comments!  #banking #fintech #bfsi #blockchain #DLT

I prefer fancy places when I dine out.  Not because I am entitled or filthy rich. It’s the noise and crowds I want to avoid. I like to enjoy my bowl of spaghetti in peace as I detangle the noisy thoughts crowding my brain. 🍜 While we discuss my bowl of spaghetti, have you heard about ‘the spaghetti mess’ banks are wary of? HQLAᵡ CEO Guido Stroemer describes spaghetti mess as the vast tangle of securities that need to be physically moved around so big banks can meet their collateral obligations. This lack of visibility leads to  ◾ Banks buying expensive collateral failures ◾ Intraday counterparty credit exposure ◾ Occasional settlement failures ◾ Unnecessary time lags There’s one simple solution to solve these challenges – Blockchain as an infrastructural layer. Banks could save between 50 and 100 million euros per year if they transfer ownership of securities for collateral obligations over a blockchain while the securities remain unmoved in custody locations. The planning to move tens of billions of volume is already underway. However, in the future, we will see a mass migration to public blockchains like Sui, enabling ✅ Fluid markets ✅Global compliance and standardization, and  ✅The highest levels of visibility, efficiency, and security. At Ascend Defi Labs, we are building composable solutions at the intersection of blockchain and banking. Let’s connect to discuss this further.  And No, I didn’t click this picture. Clicking food pictures is my wife’s department. I borrowed the picture from Google. ;) #banking #bfsi #blockchain #web3 #fintech 

According to the Atlantic Council, 134 countries & currency unions, representing 98% of global GDP, are exploring a CBDC. 19 of the Group of 20 (G20) countries are now in the advanced stages of CBDC development. Of those, eleven countries are already in the pilot stage. This includes: 🇧🇷 Brazil 🇯🇵 Japan 🇮🇳 India 🇦🇺 Australia 🇰🇷 South Korea 🇿🇦 South Africa 🇷🇺 Russia 🇹🇷 Turkey While, Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria have ALREADY launched CBDC But the largest CBDC pilot has been of e-CNY, or China’s digital yuan. It has already reached 260 million wallets across 25 cities. There is also an option for a direct CBDC—which can be accessed through a central bank application. CBDCs swing both ways. On one hand, they offer a cornucopia of advantages, including increased financial inclusion, reduced transaction costs, and enhanced payment system efficiency. On the other hand, they present risks such as potential disruptions to the banking system and privacy concerns. CBDC systems also contain several interlinked components (smart contracts, blockchain, authentication models) that must be maintained. Which is why it is taking so much time for other countries to join in. Given the sensitivity of the coin as well, the governments have to take extra steps to maintain privacy of the users. But, in May 2020 the number of countries looking into CBDC was only 35. Currently, 68 countries are in the advanced phase of exploration—development, pilot, or launch. This shows the huge growth and support of governments around the world for CBDC. I believe the day governments take out their own CBDCs would be the day the DeFi and Cryptocurrencies change forever. I am rooting for it, are you?

There are 150 million startups in the world today with 50 million new startups launching every year. On average, there are 137,000 startups emerging every day. Given the current state, it is fair to assume that a huge chunk of these have an online store or a system for online payment setup. As a financial institution, you have an opportunity to cater to 50,000+ startups every day to set up an embedded finance system and earn off every transaction that happens in their store. For those who don’t know what embedded finance is: When someone uses an app to request a ride, purchase from TikTok, or order food, they are engaging in embedded finance. Embedded finance is changing financial services by integrating lending, insurance, and investment options into nonfinancial organizations. This reduces the reliance on traditional financial intermediaries to provide convenience to consumers. A study from Marqeta found that nearly 42% of survey respondents use both traditional and digital banking providers, and the same study found that 86% of U.S. mobile wallet users make purchases through a retailer's embedded mobile app. Around 65% of businesses surveyed do not currently offer embedded finance services but plan to consider adding these services, according to a report from Juniper Research. That’s why I think embedded finance is really the shining star for legacy systems. What do you think?

So, the Federal Reserve wasn’t hacked after all. 🤔 But, the panic that ensued after reflects the growing concerns around cybersecurity in banking services. The threat of 33 TB of Personal Identification Information (PII) leak was real. 🌐 Banks collect the most sensitive customer information. ◾ Your name ◾ Social Security number ◾ Date of birth ◾ Account information ◾ Passwords Add to that your transaction details. Data thefts can render your entire digital identity vulnerable. Unsurprisingly, PII breaches constitute 97% of the data breaches today. Zoom out a bit: As technology becomes a more significant part of the BFSI sector today, these risks have become inherent. It is not as if the sector isn’t doing enough. Banks and fintechs use firewalls, intrusion detection systems, encryptions, and whatnot to ensure security. However, each distinct safety measure is a single point of failure. Instead, deploying blockchain as an infrastructural layer can greatly mitigate these cybersecurity risks.  With blockchains, ✅ The use of majority consensus for transaction validation eliminates human error and risks of 51% attacks.  ✅There’s no single point of failure.  ✅Encryption is native to the blockchain.  ✅Smart contract-based digital identity solutions can instantly verify user info without exposing any sensitive data. KYC/AML practices, audit trail, and compliance are going to be the biggest use cases of blockchain in banking. PII will undoubtedly have to go on chain into the future. As the first of its kind to provide this unique ability to banks worldwide, Ascend Defi Labs is incessantly working to make that reality happen. Connect with me to learn more. #DeFi #blockchain #banking #fintech #BFSI #cybersecurity Image Source: CRIF

Thanks to ChatGPT, literally every blog that I have read about the future of personal banking has been about how AI and ML will ‘revolutionize’ the future. But do they ever tell you exactly how and what is being done about it now? No But it also got me wondering why it is that even GPT can see that ML and AI is revolutionary. That’s when I started reading about the current tech around banking and AI. Here’s what I found: According to a study by McKinsey, the cumulative benefits are so great that the annual potential value of AI and analytics for global banking might be as high as $1 trillion. The 4 ways that we have already started working and applying these systems are: Anomaly detection (basically finding in the pattern of transactions of a customer. Every customer has a pattern, and if an amount too large is transacted, that breaks the pattern, the bank is notified) Transaction control (payment service providers can use ML to see if the amount is good enough to proceed normally or should be forwarded to a two-step verification page) Robo advisors for portfolio management (by simply asking a few questions, they suggest the best options to invest in. based on how investors respond to inquiries like “How do you plan to use the money?” and “What is your time frame?” this conclusion is drawn) Algorithmic trading (by placing “child orders,” periodically, you can place a huge order without oversight) These systems might seem like “the future” but they aren’t. They are being used every day and making banking better. One of the biggest digital wealth managers in the UK is Nutmeg. The Nutmeg robo-advisor allocates funds to a diversified portfolio based on information about a person’s financial objectives and risk tolerance. If you google its reviews you will see some magical results! So, if GPT is very close to saying AI and ML are revolutionizing banking. It has already started!

Do you know that 73% of interactions with banks today happen online? The average banking customer prefers mobile banking and an Amazon-like experience from their bank or fintech app. They want a financial partner that provides 👉 Everyday banking 👉 Financing and credit 👉 Investment advice  👉 Payment channels 👉 Bills management  👉 Insurance While managing the utmost level of security and convenience. Traditional banks have been too complacent to listen, having lately picked up pace with tech integrations. On the other hand, Fintechs and neo-banks were the result of dissatisfaction among banking customers. Today, Fintechs invite the same level of customer satisfaction and trust as banks did a decade ago. These aren’t just my observations. It’s McKinsey’s new findings. One big reason for this shift, I believe, is the post-Covid digitization and e-commerce expansion. Fintechs and neo-banks are the digitally-native banking solutions for the generation that sees the internet as a digital expansion of their lives.  Numbers suggest the fintech revolution has just started. We at Ascendefi are making sure to lead that change. Interested to know more about the project? DM me or hit me up in the comments. 

Ascend Defi Labs! The 'only' revolution in Banking Technology that's making a difference. We make banking safer, faster, cheaper, lighter... Simply better! #Banking #Technology #Innovation #Web3 #Blockchain #SUI

Trust Bank finally confirms that there had been a data breach following the cyberattack of October 2023. These data breaches and cyber attacks on legacy banks are becoming so common these days. With the increasing cases of sensitive info being leaked, it seems consumers aren’t safe anywhere. Even with their confidential information stored with banks. From small-time fraud involving individual credit card data to phishing attacks and network-based attacks that put entire systems at risk, security has become a major concern. For instance, Mastercard at one point faced some 460,000 intrusion attempts in a typical day, up 70% from in the previous year. So what can banks and NBFCs do to help the consumers and save their data? It is so important, and seriously a high time that they upgraded their systems to the new age ones. One of the best ways to do that is to include MPC protocols in their codes. What is MPC? In a general sense, MPC enables multiple parties – each holding their own private data – to evaluate a computation without ever revealing any of the private data held by each party (or any otherwise related secret information). So there is no third party, and the bank can get the info needed from the consumer without actually revealing their identity to the system. It’s like hitting two targets with one arrow. Do you agree?

According to a recent study, the P2P lending market should grow at an annual CAGR of 27.5% This is a staggering growth and good news for anyone starting a business in digitized P2P lending. I personally feel that P2P is much better than traditional loans. There are many reasons for that too. Hear me out: 👉 No middleman = no commission = lower interest rates 👉 Blockchain, AI, and ML-based software are making the whole system transparent and secure. 👉 P2P platforms provide loans to those often ignored by banks, like small businesses and individuals without a strong credit history. 👉 It is faster. I know it has been risky, in the past, which is why people avoided it. But with the current state of KYC & P2P tech and the number of years gone into improvements, I think it's the perfect time to start getting into P2P and chase the thunder before it becomes mainstream. What do you think? Is P2P something you’d use? #p2plending #blockchain