President Trump is set to sign two executive actions on Friday that take aim at reversing the new financial regulations that were put in place as a result of the 2008 financial crisis; the executive actions will give the labor secretary power to rescind the fiduciary rule and ask the Treasury secretary and regulators to come up with a plan to replace Dodd-Frank; the fiduciary rule was set to go into effect in April and was meant to ensure advisors had their client's best interests at heart; Dodd-Frank was passed in 2010 and began implementation in 2012; the law was meant to limit the chance of another financial crisis like we saw in 2008; uncertainty exists with what will end up happening, but signals show that the fiduciary rule will be struck down and Dodd-Frank will be replaced. Source
Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada's third largest bank, also known as Scotiabank, has announced a $1 billion investment in digital technology over the next three years; the initiative will focus on bringing more digital technology solutions to clients who are making fewer transactions in branches; 45% of the firm's investment will be focused on foreign markets including Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Chile; it will also be investing in new facilities for blockchain and artificial intelligence development; the firm expects the investment to help reduce costs and improve future profitability. Source
As more and more countries begin implementing biometric technology at their borders, banks are also beginning to use fingerprint analysis and retina scans to verify identities; Canada has used their NEXUS program to track travelers and India has used the Aadhaar program to identify their population; banks have begun testing out these technologies to see what fits their customer best: fingerprints, retina or facial recognition; with the new technology still comes age old issues of theft; stealing a fingerprint then changing it can happen just like the changing of a password; banks are still trying to figure out how to address the new technology and learning lessons from border patrol is one way for them to ensure the best solution. Source
Manatt provides an overview of some of the comments received by the OCC on the proposed fintech charter; the New York Department of Financial Services was critical of the charter; the American Bankers Association is supportive of the charter "...as long as existing rules and oversight are applied consistent with those for any national bank"; the Financial Services Roundtable also spoke in favor of the charter, commending the OCC for its development of the proposal; also highlighted are responses from the Consumer Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America. Source
Lend Academy provides details on IBM Watson's acquisition of Promontory Financial Group, a firm used to help navigate complex banking regulations; IBM has acquired Promontory to train Watson on Dodd-Frank which includes 22,000 pages of regulation; Promontory has experience from a long list of banking veterans and will help train Watson on financial risk modeling, surveillance, anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC); the result will be an artificial intelligence solution that can be implemented for all aspects of compliance, regulation and monitoring; Brian Walter, Watson global industry leader for banking and financial markets at IBM will be speaking at LendIt USA 2017 in a featured keynote discussing how financial firms are using artificial intelligence and how it's expected to evolve. Source
IBM Watson will be further expanding in financial services by partnering with H&R Block's 70,000 tax professionals at 10,000 locations; Watson has learned 74,000 pages of tax code through its natural language processing capability and will be able to help tax professionals at H&R Block's branches; the new services have been tested at 100 locations and will begin being used in February; overall, IBM plans to market Watson as a business service solution with its capabilities offered to consumers through innovative business partnerships. Source
Artificial intelligence is being utilized across all industries with new startups offering innovative market solutions; in January CB Insights released a list of 100 top artificial intelligence startups; Zoox tops the list as the most well-funded company with total funding of $290 million; it is also a fintech unicorn with a valuation of over $1 billion; among venture capitalists, Data Collective has emerged as a top investor partnering with 14 companies from the list for venture capital investment. Source
Wells Fargo is teaming up with Intuit which will allow customers to import account information via an API with Intuit products such as QuickBooks; we've recently seen banks opening up their data to empower customers to share their data with third parties; Brett Pitts, head of digital and virtual channels said in a prepared statement, "This agreement creates a much better experience for our shared customers, gives them greater control over their financial data, and enhances the efficiency of the data-sharing process." Source
Token-as-a-Service (TaaS), co-founded by Konstantin Pysarenko, Ruslan Gavrilyuk, Dmytro Chupryna and Maksym Muratov, will offer a blockchain fund through an initial coin offering (ICO); the fund will issue tokens which represent a proof-of-membership; the fund will perform a cryptographic audit to track trading activity; TaaS is also developing a new blockchain analytic platform called Kepler that will provide data similar to Bloomberg; according to founder Konstantin Pysarenko: "The overall aim of TaaS is to deliver long-lasting innovations in the blockchain industry. And, we believe that TaaS and Kepler are on track to revolutionize the journey of investing in cryptocurrencies and tokens forever and we are excited to watch it all unfold." Source
Biometrics testing and utilization increased substantially in 2016; Eyeprint ID provides market implementation details from 2016 on fingerprint, face recognition, voice recognition, eyeprint and multi-biometric strategies; the firm predicts biometrics will go beyond mobile in 2017 with use in a broader range of banking activities; also predicts improved security and user experience from biometric authentication. Source