How Big data, AI And Blockchain Are Changing Finance

Introduction

New players with novel approaches to business are emerging due to the integration of finance and technology. Many of these fintech companies offer cheaper, more adaptable, and more user-friendly services, eliminating the need for traditional financial institutions. Banks are no longer necessary to gain access to the financial system. Instead, technological advancements are leading to new, more cost-effective means of financing, payment, and customer service.

Late in 2017, the financially struggling beverage manufacturer Long Island Iced Tea Corp. abruptly rebranded as Long Blockchain Corp. At the time, bitcoin’s value was skyrocketing alongside the widespread interest in blockchain technology upon which bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have their basis. The stock of the loss-making company jumped by over 300 percent when it said it would shift its focus to the blockchain. Although this triggered warnings from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the fact that blockchain would offer any business such a boost shows the market’s hunger for it.

Fintech is changing the financial industry and giving us a new vocabulary of strange business words. The mass adoption of the internet and cell phones, cost-cutting technologies, greater regulatory flexibility, and significant demographic shifts allow disruptive new companies to enter the market. 

Today, these are the things that people mean when they talk about fintech. With these new market players, banks are no longer the only way businesses can access the financial system. This is good for both the end user and the business. Fintechs provide numerous benefits to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), such as more efficient payment systems, faster funding options, and better customer service.

In this blog, we’ll talk about how big data, AI, and blockchain are changing the finance industry, giving companies the power to make decisions based on data, improve security, streamline processes, and ultimately provide better financial services.

Understanding Big Data in Finance

In finance, “Big Data” refers to the vast amount of organized, unstructured, and semi-structured data that financial institutions create daily. The data originates from various places, such as stock market reports, customer transactions, and social media. The most significant challenge for businesses is collecting and analyzing this information to draw valuable conclusions. This process is called “big data analytics.” Financial institutions help people use the information to make decisions.

The data focuses on the four main areas of the financial industry: financial markets, internet marketplaces, lending companies, and banks. The daily transactions, user accounts, data updates, account alterations, and other procedures in these companies generate billions of data.

They include online peer-to-peer loans, financing for small and medium-sized businesses (SME), wealth and asset management platforms, crowdfunding platforms, trading management, money or remittance transfer, mobile payments platforms, cryptocurrency, etc. These businesses quickly analyze large amounts of random data and use the results to predict what customers want. Each user’s credit risk and historical actions form the basis for these evaluations.

The use of consumer data, algorithmic trading, the evaluation of risk, and cultural shifts are all other ways big data influence the financial sector. Big data also has a significant effect on economic modelling and analysis. Financial institutions use big data for complex decision-making models by including various predictive analytics while maintaining checks on consumer spending patterns. This allows businesses to pick and choose which kinds of financial services they provide.

All of these services generate thousands of new data records every day. Because of this, people also think keeping this data up-to-date is the most critical part of these services. Thus, data loss in the financial industry could have serious consequences.

How Big Data has revolutionized Finance

Financial institutions aren’t native to the digital world, so they’ve had to go through a long process of conversion that has needed both behavioural and technological changes. Recent years have seen several significant technological advancements in the financial sector made possible by collecting and analyzing large amounts of data. Therefore, not only have individual company processes but the entire financial services sector has been revolutionized by big data analytics.

1. Real-time stock market insights

Machine learning is changing both trade and investing. Big data allows us to look at political and societal factors that could impact stock prices instead of just looking at stock prices alone. Machine learning monitors real-time patterns, allowing analysts to assemble and evaluate the correct data and make wise choices.

2. Fraud detection and prevention

Big data and machine learning have significantly contributed to the fight against fraud. Thanks to analytics that interpret purchasing patterns, credit cards no longer present the security dangers they formerly did. If someone steals sensitive and valuable credit card information, banks can immediately freeze the card and transaction and let the customer know about security risks.

3. Accurate risk assessment

Big financial choices like investments and loans are now made with the help of unbiased machine learning. Risks, such as poor investments or late payers, can be calculated using predictive analytics, which considers a wide range of factors, including the state of the economy, different types of customers, and the size and health of the business’s financial resources.

Use Cases for Big Data in the Finance Industry

• JPMorgan Chase analyzes a massive database of customer accounts to spot patterns in customer behaviour. 

• Allstate uses big data analytics to distribute their products better and serve their customers. 

• VISA leverages big data and AI to prevent annual fraud of $25 billion. The customer benefits from these cost reductions. 

• Bank of America uses its “big data” to speed up the process of making financial forecasts. Previously time-consuming tasks are now possible to complete in one day or less. 

• American Express uses data management to create mobile apps that give cardholders additional benefits and discounts. 

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Finance

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

“Artificial intelligence” is a common way to describe computer programmes that can do tasks usually requiring human intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a valuable economic asset because of its potential to improve people’s capabilities and contributions.

What is Artificial Intelligence in Finance?

In the financial sector, artificial intelligence (AI) refers to using tools like machine learning (ML) to enhance traditional methods of assessing, managing, investing, and protecting customers’ funds.

How is artificial intelligence driving Financial innovation?

Data entry, data collection, data verification, data aggregation, and reporting are all examples of traditionally labour-intensive financial procedures. Due to these manual jobs, the finance function tends to be expensive, time-consuming, and slow to change. However, many financial processes are specific and predictable, making them ideal candidates for automation by artificial intelligence.

With the advent of ERP systems, businesses could streamline and standardize their accounting processes. Early AI automation was rule-based, meaning that when a transaction or input was completed, it was processed according to a set of rules. These systems automate financial tasks but are slow to update, need a lot of human maintenance, and lack the flexibility of modern AI-based automation. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is superior to rule-based automation because it can handle more complex situations, such as the complete automation of ordinary manual operations.

The more of your financial processes you can automate, the more precise they will be. Humans are susceptible to tiredness, burnout, and errors when performing repetitive tasks such as inputting invoices significantly. 

However, computers are free from such constraints. They may also process a greater volume of transactions per unit of time. The result is that the financial department can now concentrate on better using the information it has at its disposal.

The Benefits of AI in Finance

The benefits of using AI in finance include automating tasks, finding fraud, and making personalized suggestions. Application of AI in the front and middle office has the potential to revolutionize the financial sector by:

• Allowing for seamless, around-the-clock communication with customers

• Eliminating or significantly minimizing tedious tasks 

• Efforts to Reduce Mistakes and Negative Results 

• Spending less and saving

Using artificial intelligence to automate middle-office jobs might save financial institutions in North America $70 billion by 2025. By 2023, AI systems could help banks save $447 billion, of which $416 billion would come from the front and middle offices.

Harnessing the Power of Blockchain in Finance

The term “Blockchain in Finance” describes the use of blockchain technology in the banking sector. Several advantages for the financial services sector may result from the development of blockchain systems. Decentralized finance, or DeFi for short, is developing due to blockchain’s use in financial services. Distributed finance, or mDeFi for short, is a new financial system that uses blockchain technology and smart contracts to eliminate the need for traditional intermediaries in monetary transactions.

What  blockchain does?

Blockchain can revamp intercompany transactions (where there are many ERPs), procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, rebates, warranties, and financing (invoice factoring, letters of credit, and trade finance). Blockchain can destroy paper everywhere it accumulates.

For instance, using blockchain as a supply chain‘s transaction platform can boost efficiency. Businesses using blockchain-based platforms can streamline the time-consuming and paper-intensive process of issuing letters of credit. In contrast to the five days a paper-based system requires, a back-and-forth transaction between participants on a shared platform may be completed in hours. 

Blockchain can also lower the cost and hassle of doing the same things repeatedly in finance, reducing mistakes and delays. In a regular account payable or receivable job, matching up the supplier and buyer data can take much time. It would be beneficial for both parties to access the same reliable information to prevent such inefficiencies.

Blockchain eliminates the requirement to verify that one CFO’s transaction record matches their counterpart’s on the other side of a trade by offering a single source of truth certified by all parties. Blockchain enables better decision-making by giving finance leaders a real-time picture of a given financial scenario, including an intercompany transaction with its moving parts like tax rules, exchange rates, and compliance needs.

Uses of blockchain in the financial services sector

Some of blockchain’s many applications in the financial sector include the following:

• Transferring money

• Safer financial dealings

• Using smart contracts to automate

• Data storage for customers

Let’s go deeper into how financial institutions might leverage blockchain technology and the motivations behind doing so.

Transferring money: Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC)’s blockchain technology was developed to move funds without a central authority. Blockchains now allow faster and cheaper transactions.

Companies like Ripple, which leverages blockchain technology for its RippleNet international payment network, are a prime illustration of this trend. RippleNet transactions complete in about five seconds and cost only a few cents.

Blockchain technology may allow financial organizations to provide faster and more secure money transactions. Previously, international money transfers may take days, but today they only take a few seconds and are completely free.

Enhanced transaction security: Financial institutions are constantly targets for fraud. The risk of identity theft increases when dealing with digital payments because they must travel through payment processors and banks.

Blockchains process and record transaction blocks via cryptographic methods. Financial institutions may find this helpful encryption to lower transactional risk.

Automation through smart contracts: Ethereum’s (CRYPTO: ETH) release in 2015 was a significant milestone for developing blockchain technology. The smart contracts included in this blockchain were the first to run automatically after certain conditions were met.

Financial service providers invest significant time and energy into contracting. This could be done considerably more quickly and easily with the help of a self-executing contract.

One potential use of smart contracts is accelerating the claims process at an insurance firm. When a client files a claim, the blockchain’s codes automatically review it. The smart contract will execute and pay the customer if it is valid.

Customer data storage: To prevent fraud and money laundering, most financial institutions must go through an identity verification process with their clients. This takes effort and money but is necessary for any successful enterprise.

Another option is to use a blockchain to share client information across competing financial institutions. When a business completes its KYC procedures with a new client, it will add its information to the distributed ledger.

Other companies could use the KYC data instead of going through the process themselves. This would also save time for the client, who wouldn’t have to go through the KYC process for every new bank account.

How Big Data, AI, and Blockchain Revolutionize Financial Services

1)Personalization of Services

• The fintech revolution allows the insurance business to customize its services.

• Insurance companies are developing new ways to improve the old way of insurance.

• Telematics and the Internet of Things allow insurance companies to get information about their customers’ behavior and safety records, such as how they drive and other similar things.

• Based on the information they collect, insurers can change their rates, which leads to more personalized services and different groups of customers.

• Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible to look at data in more detail and adjust rates for each customer.

• AI’s machine learning capability allows computers to learn how to get better independently without any human intervention.
• AI and machine learning help insurers predict and avoid risks, improving their evaluation of risks.

• Tyche is an underwriting analysis tool that uses machine learning to find possible claims and create a model for avoiding claims.

• Traditional banks don’t offer the unique solutions that microfinance goods do for people with low incomes.

• Groups that are weak or left out in developing markets can get coverage from microinsurance, which protects them from financial losses.

2)Speed And Efficiency

• In the past few years, there have been a lot of changes in the payments business.

• Consumers increasingly turn to mobile wallets like Google Wallet and Apple Pay to make in-store and online purchases with credit and debit cards.

• People use mobile payment options for loyalty cards, boarding passes, concert tickets, and coupons.

• It is now possible to send money to another person fast and cheaply via a P2P network.

• In the United States, P2P platform Venmo handled transactions worth $14 billion in the last reported quarter of 2018.

• Social media networks are starting to add P2P apps.

• Fintech companies like Stripe, a third-party payment provider for online markets, are making it easier for businesses to accept payments.

• Stripe has APIs with many payment ways, devices, and countries. This makes online payments easy and smooth.

• Blockchain-based payment systems are now more rapid and effective because of the emergence of virtual currencies like Bitcoin.

• Blockchain lowers transaction costs, speeds up the process, and gives you more control over returns and refunds.
• Virtual currencies make it easy to send money around the world safely and cheaply, which is good for companies with workers in different countries or who work from home.

• Several large financial institutions worldwide are interested in the Ripple network and its cryptocurrency, XRP.

• Fintech firms focus on security by using biometric data and tokenization to improve the safety of digital payments.

• Tokenization’s uses extend beyond payment security into representing things other than money, such as medical records or property titles.

3)Automatomation of Processes

• Based on robotic process automation (RPA), robo counselors can help with automation in financial services.

• Policygenius is a marketplace for insurance that uses RPA to automate comparing policies, getting prices, and buying them.

• Any stage can incorporate RPA to automate sales cycles, increase process efficiency, and enhance customer service.

• The combination of RPA and machine learning allows for the identification of patterns, the improvement of calculations, and the navigation of complicated situations.

• Since RPA offers more affordable and precise financial suggestions, it has become popular in capital management.

• Previously prohibitive capital requirements for investing in some types of financial assets are now within reach of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) thanks to RPA.

• RPA improves the accuracy of accounts by reducing human mistakes and automating data collection from different sources.

• The fact that RPA can understand ordinary language and analyze social media data helps insurers find fraud.
• RPA makes connecting multiple systems and platforms possible, which cuts costs significantly.

• Smart contracts, digital agreements, may carry out their terms automatically and without any ambiguity or additional fees.

• Smart contracts remove the requirement for third-party verification and compliance by operating autonomously.

• Smart contracts help with supply chain management by instantly tracking movements, measuring standards, and finding where products are.

• Smart contracts can be used in the music industry, as well as copyright enforcement, securities clearing, coupon redemption, and insurance settlements.

• Businesses can benefit from smart contracts because of their transparency, lower costs, and rapid execution times.

4)Reduction of Traditional Problems

• Fintech effectively addresses long-standing issues in the financial industry, such as conflicts of interest, fraud, moral hazard, and adverse selection.

• Lemonade is a fintech company that uses its P2P platform to reduce conflicts of interest in home insurance.

• The Lemonade app has a robot that quickly checks claims against the company’s policies and runs anti-fraud algorithms.

• Lemonade can process and pay out claims in as little as three seconds, and any leftover funds go to the customer’s favorite charity.

• The idea that Lemonade wants to “turn insurance into a social good” appeals to millennials and is based on positive psychology.

• Friendsurance uses social ties and group accountability in its social business plan for insurance.

• Groups of customers with the same insurance receive a refund if no claims are filed.

• Through group success and how it affects cashback, Friendsurance encourages people to make claims responsibly.

• Companies can improve risk profiles and prevent adverse selection by using data from connected devices.

• Fintech offers chances for socially responsible alternatives to traditional financial exchanges, which tend to be competitive.

5)Easy Access to Increasingly Sophisticated Technologies

• New enterprises, especially SMEs, benefit from the ease with which fintech makes access to technology at the forefront.

• Cloud-based applications make it easier for businesses to connect their systems and give them affordable access to big data.

• Fintech services are making it easier for digitalization to happen quickly and have helped businesses meet the needs of digital residents.

• There are new ways for small businesses that don’t have a credit background to get financing through fintech.

• Fintech innovations should make it easier for SMEs to get better loans by making it easier to judge solvency without a credit background.

Regulatory Challenges and Ethical Considerations

1. Privacy and Security Concerns in Handling Big Data

Big data security faces many obstacles, including the following:

Secure Computations: Big data technologies use distributed programming frameworks to handle lots of data. MapReduce and similar distributed frameworks lack robust security features. Data in MapReduce is divided, then sent to a mapper, and finally stored in a designated area. Since the mapper lacks a protective layer, it is vulnerable to manipulation if an unauthorized user can alter its settings. Identifying these malicious mapmakers is also a major challenge. Distributed programming tools need to secure computations to protect the integrity of data.

Data and Transaction Log Security: Data and transaction logs, which can quickly become large, need multi-tiered storage infrastructures with auto-tiering capabilities. The data’s physical location is irrelevant to auto-tiering. 

Unknown physical data locations and untrusted storage devices provide new risks for enterprises that employ auto-tiering systems and risk losing command over their data. Transferring data between tiers can also inform attackers about what users are doing and how data is structured. It is necessary to secure data and transaction logs to ensure data privacy, integrity, and availability.

Validation of Inputs from Endpoints: Big data gathers information from several sources, including endpoints. It could be accumulating data from a wide variety of hardware and software. Big Data may be receiving malicious data sent from an untrusted source. The company’s analytical results may suffer as a result. Validating the provenance of all the data that Big data receive is a difficult problem.

Secure Non-Relational Data Stores: Big data technologies rapidly adopt non-relational data stores like NoSQL. These data warehouses are immature and insecure. Their lack of encryption support for data files, insufficient authentication between client and server, and the fact that data at rest is without encryption pose serious security and privacy risks.

Privacy-preserving data analytics: Analyzing data while protecting privacy is a pressing concern when using Big Data analytics tools. As data collection increases, data aggregation and analytics may violate user privacy. Outsourcing data analytics increases the risk of a malicious actor gaining access to sensitive user information. If businesses are serious about using Big data analytics techniques to boost customer happiness, they must take precautions to safeguard individual privacy.

Access control: Big data processes many types of information, some more sensitive than others, such as consumers’ personally identifiable information. You must adhere to several laws and regulations to keep that information safe. Granular access control rules should be implemented so only authorized users can see sensitive user data and analytics done on those data sets. This is essential for protecting the privacy of sensitive information.

Real-time security monitoring: Big data infrastructure and its processes’ insights require constant, real-time monitoring. The sheer volume of notifications from various gadgets always makes it a challenging chore. The number of false positives in these notifications is also rather high. Companies have a hard time keeping up with real-time data because of this.

2. Ethical Use of AI in Finance

Finance’s usage of artificial intelligence (AI) raises ethical issues:

• Automatic trading, risk evaluation, and loan disbursements are some of the many uses of AI systems’ superior decision-making speed. However, some worry that these computer algorithms may be discriminatory, erroneous, or biased. 

• The potential for AI systems to reinforce preexisting bias is a major source of ethical concern. Decisions that unfairly favor some groups over others can result from training AI systems utilizing data sets that already contain biases. 

• Artificial intelligence systems may also fail to consider human context or ethical considerations, leading to inaccurate or unfair outcomes. 

• Another moral concern is the possibility of unethical uses of AI, such as insider trading and money laundering. AI-enabled financial systems could facilitate the speedy and undetectable modification of financial data, which could serve the purpose of unethical profiting. 

• Finally, there’s the problem of confidentiality. Systematically gathering large amounts of personal information about people using AI has surveillance and marketing applications. Also, if the data kept by these systems is not properly protected, hackers or other bad people could get access to it.

3. Regulatory Frameworks for Blockchain Applications in Finance

Main regulatory challenges ahead of Blockchain

Blockchain cannot be controlled in and of itself; only the actions taken while employing it can. Regulation of blockchain operations in the financial services industry is still in its infancy due to the early stage of initiative development and the piloting of identified use cases. Given that blockchain regulation depends on the field of activity, incumbents in the industry can only request a “level playing field” to compete with new blockchain startups and the option to create “regulatory sandboxes” to pilot potential blockchain activities without violating current regulations. 

However, blockchain-based services will be subject to some existing restrictions. For instance, any blockchain-defined smart contract must conform to the contract regulation applicable to the correspondent jurisdiction, as indicated in the commercial and trade law. The blockchain will then require regulation on its monetary services (payments, loans, investing, etc.) following the specific services being provided. For instance, Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering, Banking, and Capital Markets Laws. To build consistent regulations for blockchain technologies, working closely with regulators and supervisors from the beginning is essential.

Future Trends and Innovations in the Finance Industry

1. The Rise of Robo-Advisors and AI-Powered Trading Systems

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues transforming the economy, robo-advisors are changing financial planning. Robo-advisors are online services that employ AI and algorithms to manage investment portfolios and offer monetary guidance to their users. This new financial planning strategy is altering how people invest and how they gain access to financial guidance, making it more widely available and inexpensive.

The rising need for low-cost investment choices is a major force behind the rise of robo-advisors. Traditional financial advisors usually charge fees based on a percentage of the assets they handle. This can be too expensive for many investors, especially those with smaller portfolios. Robo-advisors, on the other hand, are frequently more cost-effective because they charge either a fixed fee or a smaller proportion of assets.

In addition, robo-advisors are quite effective since they can handle numerous accounts simultaneously and make instantaneous changes in response to market fluctuations. Human advisers may have trouble matching this efficiency level because they are juggling multiple clients and may not have access to the same degree of real-time data. In addition, robo-advisors can work around the clock, allowing for the continuous monitoring and improvement of investment portfolios.

One benefit of robo-advisors is that they may tailor their recommendations to each client based on their needs and objectives. Robo-advisors employ artificial intelligence (AI) and complex algorithms to assess a client’s risk tolerance, investment horizon, and financial goals before recommending a portfolio. Younger investors, who may be more at ease with technology and less likely to seek out traditional financial consultants, may find this level of customization particularly tempting.

Also, the rise of robo-advisors makes it easier for everyone to get financial help. Historically, financial planning services have been mostly available to wealthy people, leaving many middle-class investors without access to professional help. However, robo-advisors allow a larger variety of people to gain access to financial planning services due to their lower minimum investment requirements. Because of this, more people, especially those in the middle class, now have easier access to the resources they require to accumulate and responsibly handle financial wealth.

Though robo-advisors have numerous benefits, detractors say they lack the human element that is essential in many cases for sound financial planning. One area where a human advisor has an advantage over a robo-advisor is providing emotional support and reassurance to clients during market volatility. Furthermore, a human advisor’s skill and judgment can consider elements that an algorithm could miss, making them essential in complex financial scenarios.

Nonetheless, there is no denying that the advent of robo-advisors is altering the face of financial planning as AI advances in the sector. Robo-advisors may not replace human financial advisors anytime soon, but they are a great option for those searching for low-cost, personalized advice that is easy to get. Robo-advisors’ popularity will rise as technology develops and they become more sophisticated, significantly altering the financial planning landscape.

2. Integration of Big Data Analytics with Internet of Things (IoT) Devices

Future Internet technologies like cloud computing and BigData analytics make it possible to develop and employ complex IoT analytics apps and more basic ones like sensor processing. Therefore, IoT technologies merging with cloud computing and big data analytics to produce and distribute advanced applications that handle IoT streams are hardly coincidental.

To summarize the relationship at a high level: A network of devices with electronics and sensors (connected devices) transfer real-time information to the internet (IoT), where it is assembled and stored into enormous data sets (big data) and analyzed to uncover relevant patterns (big data analytics).

IoT data are essentially BigData because they have several of BigData’s Vs, including

• Volume: In most cases, IoT data sources (such as sensors) produce large volumes of data, far exceeding traditional database systems’ storage and processing capacity. 

Due to their constant, high-frequency, and frequent production, data streams from the Internet of Things typically have very high ingestion rates.

• Variety: Because IoT devices are so different, IoT data sources can have different meanings and forms. 

• Authenticity: Internet of Things data is a prime example of the data type known as “noise.”

3. Exploring Potential Disruptions from Quantum Computing in Finance

The financial industry is built on trust and safety. Most financial products depend on secure data and communication channels and reliable ways to check the identity of users. Cybersecurity methods like RSA cryptography will be vulnerable once quantum computing becomes mainstream. 

Financial institutions must adopt RSA alternatives like quantum encryption (quantum key distribution) or post-quantum cryptography to reduce the likelihood of a quantum computer breaking their data security. Quantum application cases provide a more incremental advantage to the operations of financial institutions than the disruptive effect of quantum decryption. 

Risk management and algorithmic trading, two areas that heavily rely on conventional computing resources, already use the most modern versions of these tools; the biggest obstacles lie in the quality and availability of the data they use. On the other hand, better computing methods could further improve operations or cut costs by lowering the amount of energy that calculations across clusters of CPUs and GPUs use. 

Quantum computing has the biggest potential in portfolio and risk management. Applications of quantum machine learning in fields like fraud-prediction modeling and credit scoring could become practical shortly.

Conclusion

Modern technologies are making massive advances that are changing the world of fintech in ways that go far beyond intelligence. They are building a strong base that includes better data security, faster processing, better use of resources, and lower transaction costs. In the coming years, these amazing technological benefits are likely to become an important part of the entire financial sector, bringing in a new era of creating value like never before.

FAQs