Kęstutis Gardžiulis

🚨 kevin. Has Gone Bye Bye 🚨 kevin., once viewed as Lithuania's next unicorn 🦄, has officially declared bankruptcy 💔. With ambitions to disrupt traditional card schemes by pioneering account-to-account (A2A) payments at POS terminals, kevin.’s vision seemed promising, but it has unfortunately crumbled. 💳 The company now owes €420,000 to state social insurance, with significant delays in payments to employees and partners. This marks a tough fall for a fintech company that once held high hopes of shaking up the payments industry. Comparisons to Other Fintech Failures: Wirecard: Similar to kevin., Wirecard also collapsed after financial troubles emerged, with billions in liabilities owed to investors and clients. However, Wirecard's failure involved fraud, while kevin.'s downfall seems rooted in operational and cash-flow challenges. Greensill Capital: Another fintech that promised revolutionary financial services but fell due to over-leveraging and liquidity issues. Like kevin., it highlighted the risk of fast-scaling companies failing to manage cash-flow effectively. What’s Next for Payments? kevin.’s bankruptcy raises questions about whether the traditional card schemes will continue to dominate, or if another fintech will step up with a stronger, more sustainable A2A payments solution. 💡 Do you think the card schemes will stay dominant or is the disruption still coming? Let me know your thoughts!👇 #Fintech #Bankruptcy #KevinPayments #LithuaniaUnicorn #A2APayments #PaymentInnovation #CardSchemes #future #fintech #finance

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We've launched another L2 solution on Telegram. Top up mobile operators balance with cryptocurrency. Next we will add other payment options that Apple reviewers and Telegram will allow us to do. Link to the app: t.me/solobankbot Currently only in Russian, in the future English. Top up mobile operators is available for: 🇷🇺 Russia: Beeline, Megafon, MTS, T2 (Tele 2), Yota and other mobile operators. 🇬🇪 Georgia: Magti, Geocell, Cellfie Our advantages: - At the moment, this is the most profitable replenishment of mobile operators with crypto, with minimal commission. For Russia, this is the first such solution that did not exist yet. - The solution allows you to recharge the amount you choose from 1 GEL to 1500 Gel, using Georgia as an example. - Transaction processing speed is up to 10 seconds via CEX (Wallet Telegram and Binance). DEX is still slow due to AML checks, up to 10 minutes. We will strive to start competing with fiat deposits in the near future by providing better conditions.

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If one third of European Banks that do not currently offer #instantpayments are unsure or unconfident they'll be ready for #SEPAInstant (source: RedCompass Labs), you can bet their institution's "bottom dollar" they are far from ready for the increase in #fraud that accompanies real-time payments. What's needed now is intelligent, learning technology that offers #SPEED and #ACCURACY in both transaction #MONITORING and #SCREENING. That's where Alertspeed comes in. With 96% payment screening accuracy and at lightning-fast speeds that enable you to #interdict and #prevent the fraudulent payments leaving, it makes moving to SEPA Instant just that small bit more comforting. Remember that fraud, and how your institution handles it, especially compensation, is going to become a hotly contested customer retention and acquisition issue. It's time to get ready. #Alertspeed is a multi-award winning, #RealTime, anti-financial crime platform recognized for Speed AND Accuracy.

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Salt Bank is LIVE on the Engine by Starling core banking platform! 🚀 🇷🇴 📲 This is the FIRST TIME Starling’s Engine platform has been deployed beyond the UK, and enables Salt to disrupt the banking sector in Romania. 🤯 🏦 By partnering with Engine, Salt was able to build AND launch the bank in under 12 months and has ALREADY onboarded 100,000 Romanian customers 👨‍💻 Sam Everington, CEO of Engine by Starling, adds: “The Engine platform was built to power Starling Bank in the UK, which supports more than four million retail and small business accounts. Our work with Salt Bank shows just what our platform is capable of; Starling’s feature rich and highly personalisable banking products can be deployed around the world to attract impressive customer volumes, while our operational experience and cloud-expertise can help build, launch and run a bank in less than 12 months.” Find out more on the link below! 👇 https://lnkd.in/eT8Y6bZe Gabriela Cristina Nistor #starlingbank #bankingapp #saltbank #corebanking #bankingplatform #fintech #digitalbank #neobank #banking #fintechnews

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Kazakhstan’s fintech ecosystem is booming: - 92.3% of residents have access to the Internet, - 91% of residents over 15 years old use a cell phone, - the share of non-cash transactions has grown to 86.2%. 90% of adult population (12 mln people) are using Kaspi.kz - advanced bank (#2 by assets, #1 by daily active customers) evolved in payment, marketplace and fintech company with $23 bln market capitalisation. To the trends mentioned in article by Murat Abdrakhmanov I would add another three which I believe will shape the future of the market: 1) Open Banking - empowering customers to share their financial data with trusted 3d parties via API. This is not in place. So regulator involvement is imminent to boost competition. 2) Embedded Finance - seamless integration of any financial service in customers’ daily life to simplify their goals achievement (not only embeded lending via BNPL, or payments via QR, but also savings, protection, investing etc). 3) Generative AI - empowering customers to get smart, proactive, flexible and inexhaustible digital agents to get hyperpersonalised optimal solutions. What other fintech trends would you add? Sam Boboev Айдос Жумагулов Ivan Belokhvostikov Damir Kakiyev Oliver Hughes Cristina Doros Sanzhar Zhamalov, CFA #fintech #embeddedfinance #genAI #openbanking #ecosystem

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🌍 The New Cross-Border Payment System from BRICS – Something to keep an eye on! 🚀 The BRICS nations are making waves with discussions around a new cross-border payment system. This could be a game-changer for the global payment industry, potentially reducing reliance on traditional payment rails and reshaping the way international transactions are handled. What do you think? How might this impact the payment landscape, and could we see a shift in the balance of power among financial ecosystems? 🤔 Let’s discuss! #BRICS #CrossBorderPayments #Fintech #GlobalPayments #Innovation

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📊 +75% y2y At yesterday's MTS presentation, there were mentions of several successes in MTS's FinTech sphere. For me, one of the key figures was the growth in transaction volume in MTS PAY — up 75% year over year. It's important to remember that distribution is more crucial than feature development. #MTSPAY #FinTech #growth

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💡Payment tokenization and payment orchestration are easily two of the most complementary fintech technologies as of 2024. In client projects, I see them lying at the core of the most reliable and secure payment systems. 👉Payment orchestration is the process of managing the payment flow by coordinating various payment gateways, processors, payment partners, and methods. It allows to take advantage of: ✅Fastest transaction routes ✅Best currency exchange rates ✅Local payment methods ✅Best fees ✅Highest authorization rates At the same time: 👉Payment tokenization is replacing sensitive payment information, such as credit card numbers, with a unique identifier called a token. The token is used to process payments instead of actual data. Its benefits are as follows: ✅PCI DSS compliance ✅Increased payment efficiency ✅Reduced the risk and consequences of data breaches And here’s how it all comes together: 👉Payment orchestration offers the best routes and fees at the cost of the transaction being handled by numerous parties, which increases security risks. At the same time, tokenization mitigates the majority of such risks. 🔥While payment orchestration provides routes to multiple PSPs ensuring the optimal transaction flow, payment tokenization secures data being transferred, which minimizes all data breach and fraud risks. It’s that simple! 💡You can explore all essential details related to payment tokenization in the blog post by DashDevs. The text in full is available at the following link: https://lnkd.in/dEgKfzaP #API #Fintech #DigitalTransformation #Banking

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What happened at LHV Börsihai? I don't wanna criticize much about arguably the best bank in Estonia, and their excellent idea of creating a trading/investment game to incentivize people to learn more about financial markets. It's a wonderful idea and execution. Yesterday they paused the game due to a delay in transactions and the game is still paused today. That is understandable of course, since they told they are working on it, and it's a game after all. The starting capital was 15k USD, which translates to around 13.5k EUR. I wanted to comment more on the overall idea of the game - 3 weeks of trading, where instead of learning investing, most people resort to gambling, due to the limited timeframe. In trading there are generally concepts such as day trading and swing trading. And while the game is promoted as a means to learn investing, the short period is not necessarily promoting long term investing. But who is to say all trading is not gambling, from a certain perspective. Perhaps that's why they limited it to 15 minutes for a process, although since it is not really pushing the orders to any real exchange, there could be no limits. The trades could be made in a instance if it were architecturally built separate from their actual trading engine. The engine is most likely used for the game as well, and which is why they probably ran into errors. There is already more information and tutorials on how to trade, but these resources are not promoted on the Börsihai landing page. Easy solution would be to show one of the videos about how to trade and direct users to other training videos. There could be also tutorials specific to the contest - what are different ways of trading, either it's swing trading, day trading or others. And how is best to trade considering the duration of the competition. From there they could show few videos on trading and direct to a more comprehensive library of videos that they already have. They do have a virtual trading account (virtuaalkonto) option outside of the game as well, which is probably a better option than Börsihai for learning day trading. The timing of the competition is aligned well with the release of many quarterly results of the SP500 companies like GOOG or TSLA. It teaches competitors how to do their own research and learn trading the Warren Buffet way - by checking the real financials of the company. While he actually does a more thorough reading of all the financials of the companies, the quarterly results is a good starting point. Users can also see yesterdays trades of top 10 performing traders which is enabling a learning experience. All in all, great game and ways to improve. A somewhat unrelated note: before you go into gambling with crypto and Bitcoin, learn to trade with more stable assets such as stocks.

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The next big thing in Payments. Must read

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I got great news for fintech businesses and developers! 🔥Under the influence of #EU Commission, Apple finally is opening up the iPhone Tap-to-Pay system for third-party providers. Is it true and transparent, and what devices will it enable to conduct payments? I checked the conditions myself and am ready to share my insights. 👉Above everything, Apple indeed fulfilled their commitment to “Allow third-party mobile wallet and payment service providers to access and interoperate through a set of APIs with the NFC functionality on iOS devices free of charge, without having to use Apple Pay or Apple Wallet,” and last month, the EU made them legally binding. ✅Using the new NFC and Secure Element (EU) APIs, developers will be able to integrate forms of contactless transactions into such NFC-enabled devices: → POS terminals  → Car keys → Corporate badges → Student IDs → Home keys → Hotel keys → Merchant loyalty and rewards cards → Event tickets Apart from the EU countries, the new APIs will be available to developers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S., starting from iOS 18.1. 👉However, there’s a catch I discovered. To incorporate this solution, developers will need to enter into a commercial agreement with Apple, request the NFC and SE entitlement, and pay the fees. And, of course, Apple retains control over functionality access. Not totally convenient, isn’t it? Still, it’s a good thing that making payments has become way easier due to the large spread of contactless transactions of all types and forms. 🔥Today, contactless payments account for 50% of all transactions globally. And this percentage is definitely going to rise. ✅What’s my personal recommendation? Start strategizing for Tap-to-Pay payments integration, as I believe it will be a standard feature very soon. 💡Interested in implementing Tap-to-Pay in your product? Feel free to write in DM to me and let’s discuss opportunities for your business. #API #OpenBanking #Fintech #Banking

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EPI launches Wero wallet in Germany The European Payments Initiative (EPI) has launched its mobile-first wallet and instant account-to-account payments system in Germany, with other counties set to follow in the coming months. German Sparkassen and Volksbanken, Raiffeisenbanken customers can now make instant money transfers from account to account between individuals, via their banking app. Deutsche Bank will launch wero later this year, starting with Postbank. Wero enables mobile payments from one phone to another. Unlike traditional transfers, Wero users do not need the recipient's 22-digit account number (IBAN). Instead, a mobile phone number or email address can be used for real-time money transfers. Next year, Wero will get the ability to pay any small professional from the wallet, and also pay merchants online and upon invoices via QR code. This includes the ability for consumers to manage recurring payments for subscriptions or installments, but also to pay in merchant apps at point of sale without going through the cashier. In-store payments at the cash register will also be added in 2026, along with other capabilities, such as BNPL, merchant loyalty, programme integration and expense sharing. https://lnkd.in/ev3nH8_Z

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European crypto regulation MiCA went in to effect as of 1st of July. Circle announced their stablecoins USDC and EURC are MiCA compliant. The interesting part is that they also have an e-money licence from France. Watch this space for emergence of crypto payments innovation in Europe. An excerpt from the coverage: “Circle’s new issuance and redemption processes for USDC and EURC are handled through Circle Mint France, targeting major institutions in the European market, including exchanges, market makers, brokerages, fintech companies, payment institutions, banks, and large enterprises”. #cryptopayments #mica #stablecoins https://lnkd.in/dHRknKJs

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Binance Labs Fuels Real-World Asset Revolution in DeFi with OpenEden Investment. 🌐🏦💰 #BinanceLabs #OpenEden #DeFi #RWA #realworldassets Binance Labs OpenEden https://lnkd.in/dd_82ixt

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Maybe PSD2 was meant to save banks? 🤔 Do you remember when PSD2 and open banking became mandatory in the EU in 2018? In the years prior and afterwards, many banks complained as they were forced to offer 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 access to third parties putting their own customer frontend at risk of losing relevance. Many banks built sub-ideal APIs, often with poor connectivity and in same cases even missing data fields. If customers cannot use third party services properly, maybe these third party services just go away and customers return to the bank-own frontends? But guess what, these third party services and PSD2 exists because of customer demand.  Banks can limit the performance of their 𝘰𝘸𝘯 APIs but cannot change customer demands. With embedded finance and the fintech development in general, we are seeing an ongoing rise of infrastructure providers. Building, designing and launching financial services will become easier and easier. Customers have more choices than ever. And if banks are not addressing their customer needs, others will. Many banks fought the implementation of PSD2. But I feel, they should be thankful for the open banking regulation, because it forced them to leave their silo and interact with customers, fintech companies and non-financial brands. It was just a first step but maybe an important one for (some) banks to understand how they can continue to grow? What do you think? PS: Subscribe to my newsletter if you want to follow the developments in embedded finance (link under my name). #embeddedfinance #openbanking #embeddedbanking

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Sponsor banks operating received 35% of all regulatory enforcement actions in Q1, despite representing only 3% of banks.  Thanks Konrad Alt at Klaros Group for this great visualization.  A lot of that enforcement activity has been related to fair lending compliance. In many of these cases the main issue has been that sponsor banks were not able to demonstrate sufficient management and oversight of the fair lending risks arising from their fintech partnerships.   Until these enforcement actions started coming down, common practice was for sponsor banks to rely on annual attestations by their fintech partners of compliance with non-discrimination laws. We’ve learned through recent consent orders though that the regulatory goal posts are now more clearly defined.  Sponsor banks need to independently demonstrate: ⚫ Fairness: The credit policies, scoring models, and data used by their lending partners are fair. ⚫ Ongoing Monitoring: Disparities in underwriting, pricing, loan amounts, fraud detection, and other key decisions impacting consumers are actively tracked and addressed. ⚫ Proactive Improvement: When biases are found, sponsor banks must demonstrate efforts to identify and implement fairer decision-making systems. For partner banks with multiple lending programs under sponsorship, managing fair lending risks across many partners, many models, many data sources, and many decisions can seem daunting. That’s why our platform was purpose-built for sponsor banks: it provides a unified dashboard of fair lending risks and opportunities for remediation across many fintech partners. Our fairness-as-a-service tools: ➡ Consume an infinite amount of data ➡ Evaluate the fairness of the overall customer journey as well as each high-stakes decision made along the way; ➡ Monitor fairness outcomes and send alerts if fairness degrades; ➡ Generate less discriminatory alternative models; ➡ Quickly assess the fairness impacts of proposed changes to models and data sources; and ➡ Render results in easy-to-understand-and-explain visualizations. We also provide sponsor banks with the underlying data, computations and outputs of our system so that independent third parties can double check and reproduce our work. In today's regulatory environment, advanced fairness analytics aren’t optional – they’re essential. With fairness-as-a-service solutions like FairPlay, if you end up on the regulatory radar, you might just be doing it for the bragging rights!

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Membership in our community! 👏Finas community is happy to announce that one of our members has decided to extend their membership with us! A huge THANK YOU goes to FLOWPAY We greatly appreciate your decision and look forward to further cooperation with you. 👉About Flowpay FlowPay is a fintech company that offers unique solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. Here are some key points that highlight their distinctive approach: 🚀 Automated Financing: FlowPay provides simple, online operational financing for small and medium enterprises. Using AI, they’ve automated the entire process from financing applications to risk scoring and approval. ⏩ Speed: FlowPay offers financing 10x faster than traditional banks. This rapid access to capital is a significant advantage for businesses. 📄 Paperless: FlowPay streamlines financing by eliminating unnecessary paperwork. Everything is handled online and efficiently. 🧠 Smart Data Analysis: Their software leverages real-time data for risk assessment and approval. This results in better accuracy and speed. 🤝 Building Trust: FlowPay aims to restore confidence in small and medium-sized businesses by providing easy access to financing. William Jalloul #finas #fintech #members #membership #flowpay #leaders #crypto #bitcoin #blockchain #finance #slovakia #bratislava

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#embeddedfinance #neobank Is it possible for neobank to be lovable by customers and be profitable? Did it work to pivot from p2p lender to digital bank? Is it possible to find the niche in well saturated highly competitive market? All three answers: Yes! How? Have a look at UK neobank Zopa started in 2020: - £15.8 m profit before tax for the full year 2023; - Deposit base was up 14.9% to £3.4 billion; - Loans on balance were up 27.3% to £2.7 billion; - Cost to income decreased from 45.8% to 38.7%; - Customer base grew 30%; - NPS is 72. What is the value proposition focus? - Lending (consumer loans, credit cards, car finance); - Savings (including smart investing with tax allowances) - Embedded Finance via white label partnerships. #embeddedfinance #embeddedlending #Zopa #customercentricity #digitalbanking #NPS #consumerfinance #savings #ZopaBank #fintechpledge

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**Quality vs Timing: Why It Matters More Than Ever in FinTech** Did you know that according to a recent study, 80% of users will abandon a financial app if they encounter more than one bug? This statistic highlights a crucial point in our current work. As you may have noticed, we've been intensively working on delivering new functionalities to our clients. This has sparked many discussions about how ready we are and whether it's better to start rolling out features to users or to finish the project completely. I know this question might seem provocative to every Scrum Master, but that's not the point here. I've come to the conclusion that for banking or broader financial applications, the emphasis on quality and completeness must be greater than in other fields. Why? Imagine that after updating a music or streaming app, you encounter issues with searching or experience longer loading times. It's undoubtedly frustrating when you can't play a podcast or audiobook, but what if you suddenly couldn't see certain transactions in your banking app or if the time to load a new process significantly increased? In my opinion, our clients' expectations are very high, and finance doesn't tolerate compromises. And perhaps one more thing - I've noticed that people are much prouder of complete, high-quality solutions than just releasing an MVP. #QualityOverTiming #FinTech #BankingApps #CustomerExperience #SoftwareDevelopment #Scrum #TechInsights #ProjectManagement #AppDevelopment #UserSatisfaction #FinancialTechnology #HighStandards #Innovation

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