Converge

Global markets have worked through their largest volatility shock so far this year with bravura as the dollar, equities and bond yields are trading like last Monday's historic sell-off never happened. However, some things are unlikely to fully revert back as sentiment seems to have changed materially. Investors will remember the massive unwind of trades that had been popular all throughout 202...

Paymentology CEO Jeff Parker discusses the transformative role of embedded finance in the payment card industry. Discover how customers' engagement with brands is shifting their focus away from traditional finance service providers. Parker explores key innovations like digitalization, mobile wallets, and contactless payments, and explains how payment cards are central to enhancing customer exp...

Central banks are at a crucial turning point going from a global tightening to a easing cycle while trying to engineer a soft landing. Policy makers continue to be unusually data dependent and there is a significant uncertainty band around our inflation and labor market forecast. So the incoming data matters, even in summer. And if you then add the US election on top of that, you get volatility. A...

In this week's episode, Nicole Casperson, founder of Fintech is Femme , and Julie Armstrong , V.P. and Global Head of Verticalized Industry & Partnerships at Convera, share their journeys as women shaping the fintech landscape from the perspectives of Gen Z and Gen X, respectively. Both discuss the incredible resilience and audacity required to navigate and transform an industry that often...

The US dollar is coming off its worst two-week streak this year as slower US growth and inflation lead investors to bet on more aggressive policy easing from the Federal Reserve. However, the losses have been somewhat limited this week as politics remains front and center in the US and China. FX markets have been caught in this tug of war between macro and politics and between the Fed and Trump. I...

This week, we discuss the challenges of growing a fintech company internationally with Hong Fang , President of OKX crypto exchange , and Nicola Ebmeyer , Co-founder and CEO of Gain. Pro . We cover the recent developments and challenges in the crypto industry, the state of the private markets, language and cultural considerations in international expansion, regulatory requirements, how to sustain...

Recorded live at Money2020 EU! Payments in the air are often overlooked and undervalued, but they are a significant part of the travel experience for many. What might the future of airline payments look like as airlines move towards a marketplace model driven by customer-centricity and simplicity? At Money2020 EU, The Paypers Managing Director, Melisande Mual , spoke with two experts in the airlin...

Signs are emerging that the US economy is beginning to feel the pain from the high interest rate regime. Procyclical data has been underperforming for more than two years now. The beacon of hope and the driver of the US exceptionalism thesis, the consumer and labor market, have surprised to the downside as well in recent weeks. The macro and yields based support the Greenback has enjoyed for the m...

Emerging markets like Africa are strategically important geographies brimming with immense talent. In this week's episode, fintech guru Matteo Rizzi and Money2020's Micky Tesfaye discuss the importance of supporting entrepreneurs in emerging markets, particularly in Africa. Matteo shares his experience with TimePledge, an initiative that provides free coaching and support to African entrep...

Recorded live at Money2020 EU on 6/5/2024! We sat down with Rita Martins , author of the new book 'Web 3 in Financial Services', to discuss the innovations happening in the payment space and the potential of Web3-related technologies in the financial services industry. We cover the use of stablecoins for remittances in emerging markets, the tokenization of real-world assets for loans, the...

The aftershock of President Emmanuel Macron calling for a snap election continues to work its way through markets. FX options are pricing in higher volatility and a stronger bias against the common currency as the French yield premium rose by the most on record last week. In the United States, the narrative of the disinflation story continues to gain credibility among investors again as the consum...

Recorded live at Money2020 EU on 6/4/24! Join Ryan Rugg , Head of Digital Assets for Citi's Treasury and Trade Solutions, as we discuss tokenization and its likely impacts on the financial sector. Tokenization is the digital representation of an asset and can be used for various purposes, including tokenizing cash, real-world assets, and central bank digital currencies. There have been several...

Recorded live on 6/4/24 at Money2020 EU! Alisa DiCaprio is the Chief Economist for R3, one of the biggest technology and service providers in the blockchain space, focused on enterprise blockchain software. R3 traces its origins to a consortium of banks, and the company's focus on secure and confidential blockchain-based transactions has made them an ideal partner for many financial services o...

Recorded live on 6/4/2024 at Money2020 EU! Join Convera's Market Insights team for special candid discussion on the policy and geopolitical events shaping the global markets, including the European elections, ECB rate decision, US-China tensions, and the impact of political uncertainty on monetary policy. We cover the implications of the impending US and UK elections in 2024, non-farm payrolls...

In this week's episode, we explore the growth of open banking in Latin America, featuring insights from Germana Cruz , CEO and Head of Financial Institutions for Standard Chartered Bank Latin America, and Fady Abdel-Nour , Venture Capitalist and LatAM fintech investor with Antler Elevate . There are many opportunities for finance professionals in leveraging open banking innovations in Latin Am...

Get your copy of Fintech2025+ https://convera.com/lp/fintech-2025-report/ We project a significant surge in cross-border payment flows, expected to reach an eye-popping $290 trillion by 2030, driven by the rise of international e-commerce, greater workforce mobility, and advancements in digital payment technologies. This growth highlights the need for robust fintech solutions that enhance transact...

The US economy has clearly been in a league of its own in the post-pandemic era. And 2024 has underlined the exceptional position of the US economy compared to its peers with inflation and employment data broadly surprising to the upside. The lagging data that is relevant for the National Bureau of Economic Research to make a call on whether the US has entered a recession has remained resilient ov...

Join Riya Grover , co-founder and CEO of Sequence , as we discuss how her fintech, dubbed "the financial router," is building a flexible toolkit to help companies automate their contract-to-cash process. The move towards usage-based pricing and the adoption of hybrid pricing models are driving the need for tools like Sequence. And while spreadsheets are still useful, they are increasingl...

April has been about many things. In the United States, it was about inflation surprising to the upside and investors pricing out rate cuts from the Fed. In Asia, it was about a strong dollar leading central banks to verbally or physically intervene in FX markets to prop up demand for their own currencies. And in Europe, it was about confirming the bottoming of economic activity. In this week'...

It's well known that AI is an incredible tool for productivity, stretching across many use cases. But can AI's tentacles ever reach the C-suite, with the art and science needed to delicately balance the broader needs of an organization? Siqi Chen believes it can. We discuss how finance has lagged behind other areas in terms of software innovation and why it's solving this problem is lo...

The macro markets look a lot different now than they did at the beginning of April, and the story has once again been US economic data to blame for volatility. With the 3-month average jobs growth running at 244 thousand and 3-month annualized core inflation at 4.5%, policy makers will most likely be able to sit out a couple of meetings and hold rates unchanged.   Investors are coming to terms wit...

In light of Sam Bankman Fried's recent 25-year prison sentence and the FTX collapse, what are the deeper implications on the crypto industry as we move into a new era of digital asset adoption? In this week's episode, we discuss the erosion of trust, the need for strong governance and risk management controls, and the responsibility of individuals in understanding the risks involved when p...

2024 has so far been about US soft data surprising the consensus to the upside and investors paring back their expectations for rate cuts across the developed world. Naturally, this has led both government bond yields and the US dollar higher. However, the low volatility rate in the FX space means that while the Greenback has risen against 78% of its global peers in the first quarter of 2024, the...

The disbursement of humanitarian aid has been a historical challenge for many organizations aiming to provide relief around the globe. The Stellar Development Foundation's Aid Assist program is aiming to change that. Powered by the Stellar blockchain, Stellar is on a mission to democratize access to financial services, with the goal of revolutionizing how humanitarian aid reaches its recipient...

Global investors have become comfortable pricing in the eventual turn of the global monetary policy cycle to a more accommodative stance. However, the big macro theme in early 2024 has been the paring of G3 policy easing bets against the backdrop of somewhat rebounding inflation rates. This has led to a rebound in bond yields and the Greenback, without putting pressure on equity markets. Volatilit...