Nicole Harper, Content Manager
Nicole is a communications professional with a strong interest in innovation, big data, UX & human-centered design. At Strands she is bringing disruptive ideas to life & telling their stories by delivering beautifully crafted & engaging content. Nicole holds an M.Sc. in industrial environmental economics.
The rise of financial technology, or FinTech, has been one of the most exciting developments of recent years. Firms such as Transferwise, Kantox, Monzo and iZettle have proved that tech startups are capable of offering individuals and SMEs quicker, cheaper and more convenient financial services than traditional banks.
New progress in the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning has created the opportunity for fintech to steal yet another march on banks. Creative application of machine learning has the potential to enable startups to also offer a fairer and more personal service than anything that has come before.
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Topics:
AI,
Machine Learning,
personalized banking,
Artificial Intelligence,
Digital Transformation
Author:
Nicole Harper, Content Manager on Sep 30, 2016
ON THE AI FUTURE OF FINANCIAL SERVICES
At Strands we're stacked full of FinTech experts of all stripes and colours, but did you know we have two in-house gurus on artificial intelligence and machine learning of our very own?
In the lead-up to the D-RAFT AI & Robotics Demo Day, we sat down with each of them to pick their brains about the future of AI and ML with a special banking twist. Thanks to the folks at Prowly for developing these incisive questions.
Before we get started with the interview, some introductions are in order...
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Topics:
Machine Learning,
Artificial Intelligence
Author:
Nicole Harper, Content Manager on Sep 23, 2016
Machine learning has had fruitful applications in finance well before the advent of mobile banking apps, proficient chat bots, or search engines. Given high volume, accurate historical records, and quantitative nature of the finance world, few industries are better suited for artificial intelligence. There are more uses cases of machine learning in finance than ever before, a trend perpetuated by more accessible computing power and more accessible machine learning tools (such as Google’s Tensorflow).
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Topics:
AI,
Machine Learning,
Big Data
Author:
Nicole Harper, Content Manager on Sep 15, 2016
kantox entrevista a erik brieva
En una escena Fintech cada vez más saturada, encontrar puntos de vista originales empieza a ser una misión casi imposible. Afortunadamente, hemos tenido la oportunidad de entrevistar a Erik Brieva, CEO de Strands, y voz de una de las empresas con más proyección de este ecosistema.
Especialmente interesante es su visión sobre las partnerships entre Fintech y bancos o su perspectiva sobre cómo estos últimos se encuentran en un “sandwich”, amenazados tanto por estos nuevos actores, como por gigantes tecnológicos como Google, Amazon y compañía.
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Topics:
FinTech,
banco digital,
BBVA,
Transformacion digital
Author:
Nicole Harper, Content Manager on Sep 9, 2016
kantox interviews erik brieva
It is becoming an increasingly difficult task – verging on mission impossible – to find original viewpoints inside a Fintech landscape that is getting more and more crowded. Fortunately, Kantox had the opportunity to interview Strands CEO Erik Brieva, a leading voice at one of the firms with the most potential in this ecosystem.
Of particular interest are his vision on the future of Fintech-bank partnerships and his opinions on how banks find themselves stuck in a "sandwich", threatened by both these new actors, on the one hand, and tech giants such as Google and Amazon on the other.
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Topics:
Digital Transformation,
digital money management,
Financial services,
FinTech Race
Author:
Nicole Harper, Content Manager on Sep 8, 2016
While there’s been a lot of coverage recently on Fintech disruption and innovation in the banking space, Personal Finance Management (PFM) isn’t gathering enough attention even though it represents a phenomenal opportunity for banks to proactively help customers manage their finances.
So what gives? wipro digital's Strategy Director Alla Bida explains and paints a compelling picture of what a game-changing, supercharged PFM looks like...
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Topics:
PFM,
Personal Financial Management (PFM),
financial coach,
digital money management
Author:
Nicole Harper, Content Manager on Aug 30, 2016
WHY BANKS ARE JUMPING ON THE BLOCKCHAIN REACTION
What a mess our global financial system is: $230 trillion of global debt. Imploding currencies all over the world, whether it’s the Brazilian Real, Russian Rouble, Venezuelan Bolivar etc. Money printing and devaluing of currencies by central banks on a scale unimaginable ten years ago... the list goes on.
While a tiny minority has become obscenely wealthy, billions of people are struggling to survive, all due to a system that was poorly designed and has not evolved to meet modern needs. What’s more, most of those people don’t even have access to some of the financial services that we often take for granted, such as online banking, credit, and ATMs.
So what would a financial system look like that truly functions for the underbanked or unbanked in any country?
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Topics:
Bitcoin,
blockchain,
blockchain technology
Author:
Nicole Harper, Content Manager on Aug 18, 2016
1. INTRODUCING INBOUND
About a month ago, the Strands Marketing Dreamteam took a field trip to Madrid to attend the 4th edition of Inbound Marketing Made In (#IMMI16), jointly organized by ICEMD, SeedRocket and InboundCycle.
A lot of our learnings are readily applicable to the Strands world of financial services and e-commerce, so we thought we'd share the best knowledge nuggets with you, dear readers!
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Topics:
inbound marketing,
marketing for banks,
e-commerce,
inbound,
content creation
Author:
Nicole Harper, Content Manager on Jul 22, 2016
