Fintech and AI: Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Used in Finance

The impact and the innovation of AI can be seen everywhere, and fintech is no exception. The disruptive power of financial industries to shape the traditional financial institution is growing because of the advances in artificial intelligence.

AI-powered and machine learning technologies in fintech will help analyze large data sets in real-time and have the ability to make improvements. As the demand for such services increases, AI and ML become the key to sustainability and growth in the industry.

Capacity and Compliance in Hybrid Cloud, Multi-Tenant Big Data Platforms

As organizations are realizing how Data-Driven insights can empower their strategic decisions and increase their ROI, the focus is on building Data Lakes and Data Warehouses where all the Big Data can be safely archived. Big data can then be used to empower various data engineering, data science, business analytics, and operational analytics initiatives to benefit the business by improving operational efficiency, reducing operating costs, and making better strategic business decisions. However, the exponential growth in the data that we humans consume and generate day to day makes it necessary to have a well-structured approach toward capacity governance in the Big Data Platform.

Introduction:

Capacity governance and scalability engineering are inter-related disciplines, as this requires a comprehensive understanding of our compute and storage capacity demands, infrastructure supply, and their inter-dynamics to develop an appropriate strategy for scalability in the big data platform. In addition to this, technical risk resolution and security compliance are equally important aspects of capacity governance.

API Security Weekly: Issue 161

This week, we have details of a vulnerability in the AI platform Wipro Holmes Orchestrator, allowing the download of arbitrary files via path manipulation. There's also a new report from researcher Alissa Knight on vulnerabilities in banking, cryptocurrency exchange, and FinTech APIs; an article on the impact of a shift-left approach for API security; and 31 tips for improving API security.

Vulnerability: Arbitrary File Download in Wipro Holmes Orchestrator

This week saw the disclosure of a vulnerability that affected the AI platform Wipro Holmes Orchestrator, as detailed in this disclosure and tracked as CVE-2021-38146.

Upcoming FinTech Trends in 2022

Steady growth in the FinTech industry has taken place in the past decade. It is revising the lines in financial services. 2021 has witnessed significant innovation like never before. FinTech companies made a 96% increase in global funding and are turning out to be the "Decacorns." The rise of FinTech as a Service (FaaS) platforms fueled the expansion of digital banks and the rapid adoption of biometric technology in onboarding. Further paradigms, such as embedded finance and autonomous finance, are emerging components of the sector, and 2022 is expected to see significant maturity.

The question that often turns up is: "What is the future of FinTech in 2022?" The prime predictions will be detailed in the sections below. 

Digital Lending Is a New Trend in Fintech in Recent Years

Digital lending is currently known to be one of the top new trends in Fintech in recent years. Digital lending is the way of providing loans that are applied for, paid for, and handled via digital channels. Lenders utilize digitized information to make lending choices and generate strategic client loyalty, and this process is becoming more popular. 

The global credit market, including Fintech, is undergoing transformation. Create digital content in seconds, then distribute them online to more connected worldwide consumers by making use of increasingly digitized and available customer data, technological improvements in machine learning and artificial intelligence, and cheap digital platforms. A new trend of Fintech has emerged: the digital lender. 

How Do Open Data Servers and Databases Help Optimize Performance in FinTech

Data is a piece or a large amount of information stored electronically. With so much information stored in different folders, this separation of data makes data storage inconsistent and tedious to access, edit, or replace.

That’s exactly where servers or databases come into the picture. With complex data and numbers pouring in on a daily basis, having a strong database or servers is crucial to managing it. A database is nothing but a collection of information in a structured way to allow for prompt readability, access, and editing. It is the center of the flow of data, as data flows from the database to other parts of the system.

Amount Validator JS [Snippets]

I have been working on Fintech projects for a long time. While working with business people I have realized that they want to see financial items in a proper business format. One of the most common requirements is they want to input amounts filed in a business format (like comma-separated amounts field by only allowing two decimal points, etc).

I have searched a lot on the internet and didn’t there any complete article or guideline to validate and take input of the amount field properly, and finance clients always want to input/type the amount field in a way where the user can feel that he/she is inputting/typing an amount, not a number or anything else.

AR: Shaping the Next Decade of Fintech

Introduction

Augmented reality is already becoming more commonplace by the day. Via smartphones, AR is already widely accessible throughout the world of gaming, entertainment, and even finance-based consumer applications. In terms of business, cloud access means that AR users can operate seemingly free from hardware while applications enable businesses to link the data-driven power of the computer with human judgment and expertise. 

It’s this collaboration between rich data and human intervention that makes AR an ideal asset in the world of fintech. The sector is growing while augmented reality represents the next logical step in making finance run on brand new tech. 

Why Fairer AI Is Essential For Long-Term Survival

Introduction

In my most recent post, I covered some areas that I hope to see evolve in the next year and beyond. How we can do more with data across industries is, of course, an important consideration for data scientists, businesses, and society as a whole, as better models lead to improved products and services. 

When machine learning models for cancer diagnoses show promise, we naturally rally around this positive step and rejoice in the vision of a brighter future because it’s a victory that touches us all in some way. But there are many other ways AI can and must be used for good in the world, and in my next few posts, I want to use a financial services example that affects all of us, to show how that can be achieved. 

How Big Data and Open Banking Are Combining To Bring a New Era of Fintech-Driven Banking

Introduction

The rise of technology and digital services has led to increasing customer demands for simplicity and speed. Banks and financial services institutions are continuously searching for new ways to retain and attract customers while aiming to respond to heightened consumer demand for personalized services. For this reason, customer-centric offerings continue to dominate the financial technology (FinTech) landscape. 

Personalization takes advantage of real-time data and cutting-edge technologies to deliver product or service information to customers. In an extremely competitive financial services sector, there is more pressure than ever for FinTech companies to provide customers with a better experience. 

Using Python for Accounting And Finance Applications

The global FinTech market was valued at $127.66 billion and is expected to reach $309.98 billion at a CAGR of 24.8%, a report by PRNewsWire suggests. The staggering growth is the result of digital payments and transactions. From investors and traders to personal loan customers, everyone is hooked to FinTech.

If you are building FinTech products to cater to this multiplying need, you are on the right track.

Embracing Cloud-Native and DevOps in Regulated Industries

Keeping the cloud and DevOps under lock and key.

DevOps practices are helping companies build software that will function properly in a more automated world and this is what building cloud-native software is all about. While the cloud-native approach is becoming more critical and making life easier for everyone involved in software development, there are still industries that are laggards and kind of scared to move out of their legacy practices. Yes, we are talking about the highly regulated industries like Healthcare, Financial corporations, government agencies, etc. When it comes to adopting new technologies of building software, these industries have always remained slow because of the limitations they carry with them. But recently we have seen so many traditional banks and hospitals moving towards DevOps and cloud-native practices.

You may also enjoy: Cloud Native Series: What Is Cloud Native?

You cannot be a cloud laggard these days, dragging traditional systems into the cloud. It is not just software companies that are innovating these days; every company is becoming a software company now.

Evolving Integration Strategy at a Major Canadian Bank, Part 1

Key Takeaways

  • CIBC is a major Canadian Bank with more than 150 years of history. The technology landscape is highly heterogeneous. Modernization of such a diversified environment is a tremendously difficult task. CIBC adopted an API strategy and developed Integration Pattern to support it. The article discusses major decisions an architect must make to apply the Pattern.
  • Having design patterns, recommendations, and best practices is not enough. Technology must support and enforce them through platforms and frameworks developers use to create products.
  • CIBC developed API Foundation Platform (APIF) to support and enforce CIBC Integration Pattern. It implements service mesh to support Cross-Cutting Concerns (XCC) in a unified manner across all Lines Of Business. APIF supports both sync and async (messaging and event-based) communication.
  • APIF implements recently emerged patterns to support eventual consistency; however, even with all these patterns, tools, and frameworks, eventual consistency remains an extremely difficult problem to solve. Some alternatives must be considered.
  • CIBC adopted an iterative approach to build new functionality or decompose legacy applications to (micro)services. For some use-cases, modular monolith architecture will be perfectly fine. Modules that meet defined microservices criteria might be extracted, packaged and deployed as independent (micro)services.

Executive Summary

With emerging new devices and technologies in the last years, CIBC, as the entire industry, goes through enormous changes in all aspects of developing new capabilities and delivering business value. To address the new requirements CIBC embraced and promotes API Strategy which in turn requires new Integration Strategy. CIBC developed a generalized Integration Pattern to reflect these changes and related standards to enforce the pattern. The pattern is directly supported by the API Foundation Platform built in our organization. Successful implementation of the pattern requires a steep learning curve and critical thinking to navigate through zillions of buzzwords to understand what would be the best possible solution for a concrete use-case.

The article discusses major decisions architects and designers should make to apply the pattern: what API protocol to choose? What would be the right architectural style to implement the API? What is the recommended roadmap, and the best strategy to progress from one architectural style to another one, say from a legacy application to a structured monolith, and then, if required to microservices? What are the options to implement the isolation layer? What design patterns to use to implement Cross-cutting concerns (XCC)? And what about eventual consistency?

How AI Can Turn Traditional Businesses Into Stand-Out Enterprises

Artificial Intelligence is emerging as a key factor within the finance industry, toward increasing revenues, and toward achieving business goals. From providing value-based business strategies, improved customer experiences, increased revenue generation, and reduced costs, AI is establishing itself as a significant technological advancement to achieving business success. Top management is now viewing AI to assess business areas that are poised to substantially benefit through advanced analytics and deploying it to achieve the desired outcomes.

The natural evolution of technology for business benefits that took us from paperwork to the internet is now swiftly transforming toward AI, and the Finance industry is no exception. The heavy volumes of data involved in the finance sector make this technology a primary resource toward business benefits. The process of pattern establishment and identification is a key advantage that has attracted increasing attention toward the analytical capabilities of this technology. Although AI comes with innumerable benefits for the finance industry, there are also some concerns with regard to trust, bias, and regulatory compliance, hence it is prudent to view the technology as a means to assist human endeavors rather than the replacement of human involvement.