Artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting the traditional insurance value chain according to IBM. Artificial intelligence is showing up in marketing/product development, policyholder acquisition, underwriting, policy administration/asset management and claims. Seventy-five percent of insurance executives surveyed in an Accenture study believe AI will alter or transform the insurance industry in the next few years. MetLife, Allianz, Transamerica, [...]
Most of us have a plastic “chip and pin” card from a traditional credit card company we use to complete transactions. Is this method of payment still going to be the most popular form? I wouldn’t bet on it. Competing forms will likely alter how we pay with or without cards. As a starting point, [...]
What is the current relationship like between banks and Bitcoin? It continues to ebb and flow. In March, Reuters reported one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges struck a rare deal to allow it to open a bank account with Britain’s Barclays. This was intended to make it easier for UK customers of the exchange to [...]
Few of us freeze our credit files at the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion and Experian), even after massive data breaches like the one at Equifax. This breach compromised the private data of as many as 145 million Americans. Gartner Research analyst Avivah Litan estimated about 2 percent to 3 percent of U.S. consumers currently have [...]
How often do you pay with Bitcoin? What about Ether? Up until recently, Bitcoin has been the dominant digital currency. Ether may change that. Unlike traditional currencies, Bitcoin and Ether are tracked and maintained by a network of computers. Specifically, a separate, global computer network of volunteers hosts and maintains each currency (e.g., Ethereum is [...]
How is insurtech being viewed in today’s market? Pretty well if investment is an indicator. Insurtech is the form of financial technology (fintech) receiving the most investment according to Insurance Day. Investors in 2016 poured more than $1.7 billion into insurtech startups worldwide. The KPMG/CB Insights joint report, “The Pulse of Fintech,” defines insurtech as [...]
High-profile names in retail banking like Barclays and HSBC have already adopted biometric authentication in some form. So, how comfortable are you with banks using biometrics to confirm your identity? In Great Britain, they seem pretty comfortable. According to research from Visa, British consumers are nearly twice as likely to trust banks (60 percent) to [...]
When mobile payment technology first became available, some experts referred to it as a solution in need of a problem. The EMV chip card switch provided it with a very real problem that it can fix. Most of the new chip card readers (including Square) can handle the near field communication (NFC) technology used by [...]
If you drive a car, you are sharing the road with uninsured drivers. Although it is against the law in 49 states and the District of Columbia to drive without insurance, approximately one out of eight U.S. drivers do not have auto insurance according to the Insurance Research Council (IRC). In several states, more than [...]
Who or what are you using to help make your investing decisions…a human or computer program? Mark Andress and Troy Hooper point out in Forbes that sophisticated financial advice used to be just for the wealthy. But in the last couple of years, “robo advisors” – which use computer programs to make intelligent investing decisions [...]