The State of AR: Trends, Headwinds & Opportunities

whitePaper | November 30, 2021

In writing this Discussion Paper, “A Proposal for Digital Banks in India: Licensing & Regulatory Regime”, we are pleased to have collaborated with Black Dot Public Policy Advisors as the knowledge partner. Mr Mandar Kagade, Founder Principal at Black Dot made valuable contributions in developing this Discussion Paper. Ms Shehnaz Ahmed of the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy acted as external expert reviewer of the Discussion Paper and offered detailed comments and inputs. We acknowledge her valuable contribution. We are also grateful for the support and inputs from the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, representatives of public sector banks including the State Bank of India, and Sabyasachi Upadhyay, Associate, NITI Aayog. Useful insights were also obtained from the deliberations in the conference, “Neo-banking for Business: The Future of Digital Banking”, especially Mr Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore. They are gratefully acknowledged. Last but not the least, the inputs offered by the fintech sector stakeholders who were approached for inputs in the course of drafting this Discussion Paper is acknowledged. NITI Aayog would endeavour to continue with the stakeholder consultation in evolving policy dialogue.

whitePaper | April 1, 2023

“Banking is necessary; banks are not,” said Bill Gates in 1994. As financial services become increasingly embedded into everyday life, the truth of this statement has never been clearer. Customers are increasingly accessing financial services through channels other than the bank. Embedded finance is changing the banking landscape and is expected to have an estimated market value $138 billion by 2026, according to Juniper Research.

whitePaper | February 1, 2020

Traditional financial services firms around the globe — banks, insurers and asset managers — need to embrace both digital transformation and data privacy simultaneously to thrive in the coming decade. These two objectives are deeply intertwined because the success of digital transformation programs is highly dependent on an organization’s ability to engage with personal data, including data privacy compliance and ethics issues.

whitePaper | February 26, 2022

During the past year, financial organizations and banks in particular, have suffered increasing rates of cyberattacks coming in from every possible threat vector. According to Check Point Research, a financial organization was attacked on average 700 times every week during 2021, a 53% increase year-over-year, and according to IBM the average cost of a successful breach was $5.85 million. From phishing to supply chain attacks, and everything in between, what we have seen is just the tip of the iceberg.

whitePaper | November 14, 2019

Municipal bond funds experienced strong flows in 2019, as tailwinds from the country’s new tax code (the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act “TCJA”) and low interest rates found investors flocking to the asset class for the tax benefit. Add in strong year-to-date performance, and investors may be asking if they missed the boat and if it’s too late to invest in municipal bonds. Yet, there are clear and distinct reasons why municipal bonds are still an attractive investment for investors today.

whitePaper | August 8, 2022

Technological and social change have led to decreased reliance on both physical cash and traditional bank branches. While cash accounted for 45% of all payments in 2015, five years later it was used in only 17% of transactions in the UK. The coronavirus pandemic reinforced this tendency. Similarly, the number of bank and building society branches in the UK fell by about 34% between 2012 and 2021.