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Markets have been stunned recently by regulators hitting high-profile organizations, including tier one investment banks and trading platforms, with significant fines for cases involving ‘spoofing’.

by Steve Wilcockson, Product Marketing, Data Science, KX

Spoofing is a form of market manipulation where a trader places a large series of orders to buy or sell a financial asset, such as a stock, bond, or futures contract, with no intention of executing them. With increasing varieties of interconnected asset classes being traded, organizations must be more alert across all of their markets or risk severe sanctions.

For example, in one case, a trader took advantage of the close correlation between U.S. Treasury securities and U.S. Treasury futures contracts and engaged in cross-market manipulation by placing spoof orders in the futures market to profit in the cash market. This resulted in a $35million fine! Or take the case of precious-metals traders who consistently manipulated the gold and silver market over seven years and lied about their conduct to regulators who investigated them. Penalties are in the order of a billion USD.

A revolution in detection

Such cases represent a clear failure to prevent instances of market abuse, and we might ask how that is possible given recent investments in detection systems designed to help protect organizations from such activity.

Technology on its own is not a solution. Personal ethics are, and always will be, an issue. However, technical evolution in how spoofing is conducted must be countered with a revolution in spoof detection. Traditional spoofing operates where false, but manipulative, orders are placed on the same asset where the unlawful profits may get realized. Traditional systems may capture such instances well. However, systems can and have failed in cases of more furtive manipulation, such as realizing the profit on a derivative by placing the spoofing orders on an underlying asset, not the derivative contract itself.

Successful future-proofed technologies must look for correlations across assets, business units, and markets. But more monitoring means more data and compute overhead, as well as team and workflow challenges.

When monitoring so many more data combinations, static detection systems face challenges. They need to be sufficiently agile and dynamic to handle greater data dimensionality. Robust statistics, machine learning, and behavioural analytics can help quickly synthesize data, provide early indicators of suspicious activities, and quickly eliminate false positives, but more is needed. Delivering rigorous historical event analysis and real-time insights, detection systems and their owners need dimension-busting algorithms that can work with ever-increasing volumes and complexities of data at speed.

Scalable analytics

Detection technologies must adapt to evolving market needs: new data types, the sheer volume of data, and constant updates over time. Time-series data – collections of data, often from different sources and types, organized through time – is the most efficient base unit, enabling ready processing to seek correlations, anomalies, and patterns. For example, when looking for spoofing and “layering” specifically, internal order/quote actions and trades are compared to market quotes, not just top of the book but also in their depth and consolidated trades. This helps determine if deceptive orders and cancellations that formed part of the strategy were marketable (i.e., likely to execute) at the time of the transaction. This can consist of hundreds of millions of records or more. The North American futures industry, for instance, generates over 100 billion order messages each day, and the securities markets billions more!

Choosing the right haystack

Another challenge is finding meaning in the masses of data. In plain terms, when looking for a needle in a haystack, select the right haystack to start with, and then minimize the disruption to finding the needle. In such cases, machine learning can deliver more efficacy over such high-dimensional data than rules-based solutions. Yet rightly or wrongly, and for reasons of regulatory compliance and governance around explainability and reproducibility, machine learning models tend to augment easier-to-validate rules-based processes.

However, machine learning techniques can compute over as many axes as there are useful features, easily. One popular method deployed across many industries and applications – from police surveillance to cybersecurity, from search engine recommendations to predictive healthcare and financial surveillance – is a Support Vector Machine (SVM). This is a great algorithm to identify and score features – measurable pieces of data – such as colours and distances on an image, or, in the financial world, trade characteristics and trading patterns including fraudulent features across different data sets.

Many other algorithms and tests apply in addition to SVMs. Whatever the model approach – clustering or regression, linear or nonlinear, machine or deep learning algorithms – their parameterization is invaluable in financial surveillance. For spoofing, they can navigate well the frontiers and layers of normal and abnormal market activities, and assess balanced and unbalanced markets, where liquidity might be illusory or volume artificial.

Conclusion

Spoofing is hard to detect. Its very existence relies on trades likely not being executed, increasingly across different markets and assets. As the examples have shown, regulators have the teeth to find and punish such market-abusing spoofers, so regulated entities need to ensure they have the tools to find them too. Personal ethics will forever challenge financial organizations and regulators, but dynamic, flexible, fast technologies navigating highly complex data sets can future-proof organizations, adding agility and scalability to their fraud detection, crime, and AML stacks.

After a summer of bad news for the global economy, we are at a worrying turning point. Rising interest rates, high inflation, and stunted consumer spending have created a complex path ahead for all. The economic fog is even denser than usual, but many would agree with the view that when the going gets tough, fintech gets going.

by Tom Voaden, Strategic Partnerships Lead at BR-DGE

For the Buy Now Pay Later sector, like so many areas of the fintech ecosystem, these economic headwinds will create both challenges and opportunities. Tightening consumer purse strings is an opportunity for BNPL to reinforce its core mission around low fees and choice. In turn, rising consumer demand for alternative payment methods could accelerate merchant adoption of BNPL services at the till. Recent data from Juniper Research predicts that BNPL consumer usage will increase from 360 million today to over 900 million by 2027, perhaps highlighting that the pandemic surge was just an appetiser to a prolonged period of accelerating global adoption for the rest of this decade.

However, in times of recession, customer default rates will need to be monitored closely and there is now an even greater need to safeguard consumers. In this area, firms have an opportunity to be forward-thinking and embrace prioritising innovative consumer protection and controls before regulation comes into play.

BNPL 2.0 = diversification

With an eye on the future, Buy Now Pay Later providers are increasingly looking to diversify their offerings ahead of regulation. Open Banking is one area where the likes of Klarna have focused, and see strong growth opportunities in the future. New ventures such as this can also allow the enablement of new capabilities which combine with and complement their core BNPL offering. Their new business unit “Klarna Kosma”’ claims to process nearly a billion information requests to bank accounts every year. Global expansion is another priority, with leading players looking to make inroads into markets where BNPL penetration has room to grow, such as the US and India.

Beyond this, regulation will lead to greater diversification of the goods and services that BNPL can be used for. The reality is, the more BNPL providers are required to, or decide to secure financial licenses, whilst also carrying out more stringent checks on customers, the more they may have scope to offer higher lending and longer-term payment plans. It is likely that we will see providers focus more on areas such as automotive and medical services post-regulation.

The bottom line here is that BNPL providers see a number of strategic opportunities across the ecosystem to leverage their proposition and ultimately unlock new revenue streams. The intent and appeal of this is clear, but it will be interesting to see in the coming years how this plays out.

Regulation as a driver for BNPL consolidation

In the UK, the sector is in its final sprint to regulation, with the government pledging to publish a consultation on draft legislation towards the end of this year. In preparation for this, many firms will need to increase their resource and focus within legal, compliance and risk to ensure they are playing by the rules. This need will no doubt impact the margins of BNPL providers and could be a catalyst for M&A in the sector.

Across the globe, there are now hundreds of BNPL providers offering various shades of flexible payments. The jury is out on whether this is an overcrowded space, but it is easy to see consolidation becoming the answer when market share and resources are inevitably squeezed. Block’s acquisition of Afterpay earlier this year further shows the appeal of the sector to larger financial institutions. A number of factors are at play here, but it is likely that M&A becomes as common as fundraising rounds for the BNPL sector in the years ahead

Looking to the future

The economic outlook is challenging for businesses and consumers. Forward-thinking and agile, the BNPL sector will need to harness its knowledge and expertise to support consumers at the same time as continuing its impressive growth trajectory. Increasing competition between payment providers will also further drive innovation in the checkout space which many will need to react to. The customer journey has also grown in importance and is just one key area where providers can innovate in order to meaningfully support both consumers and merchants.

As demand amongst consumers has grown, and preferences evolve, it is important the industry works to ensure merchant customers can meet this shift. The opportunity, therefore, lies not only in offering consumers greater payment flexibility and choice at the checkout but also in ensuring merchant checkout innovation moves as fast as customer preference diversifies and changes.

As the BNPL sector matures, it is reasonable to expect that the path ahead will be very different to the recent past.

With the European Commission first adopting the PSD2 proposals in 2015, Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) has now officially come into force across the UK. Now that this long-anticipated wait is over, we can start to look at what SCA means in practice and how merchants can do go beyond these regulations.

by Scott Dawson, Director of Operations, Pixxles

How SCA impacts merchants

In simple terms, SCA requires a customer to verify themselves with two of the three following pieces of information, such as a password, mobile device, fingerprints, facial recognition, or even subtle cues like how they type before payments can be processed. Although these regulations introduce increased friction in the payments process, SCA is necessary to prevent fraud.

Overall, the roll-out of SCA across Europe as a whole has been smooth, despite alarming news of a third of all transactions being blocked and losses of €100 billion. This is likely to be down to the flexibility built into SCA from the outset: transactions under €30 were exempt, and many merchants will receive exemptions on transactions up to €30 if their acquirer’s fraud rate is below 13 basis points and €250 if their fraud rate is below 6bps. This flexibility encourages acquirers and merchants to be proactive about fraud, as the lowered friction from a lack of SCA challenges will likely translate into more sales.

Despite offering increased protection, European eCommerce merchants have seen fraud rates rise as much as 350%. However, this does not indicate that SCA is not effective. The sharp influx in fraud, in general, is down to the rise in new eCommerce shoppers during the pandemic. In fact, if SCA was not in place, it is possible that this figure could have been even greater. Therefore, SCA should be seen as one of many systems that a merchant should have in place if they want to reduce fraud on their eCommerce site.

A collaborative approach to reducing fraud

With that said, what then are merchants’ options for going beyond to minimise fraud rates even further than SCA regulation currently allows, whilst maintaining a frictionless payment process for legitimate customers?

First and foremost, it is important to understand the exemptions process and what level of protection is available to your company. For example, if your fraud rate is already very low, you might have the option of exempting customers from SCA. In order to do this, you will need to contact your current acquirer, and if your current payments partner can’t offer you high enough exemptions you may need to consider changing acquirers.

Next is to adopt additional security technology to support SCA. There are a number of systems that use AI and machine learning to spot the signatures of fraud before it gets to the payment stage. Very few fraud attempts are carried out by a human being on a computer – instead, bot networks with increasingly sophisticated and humanlike behaviour are used to carry out hundreds of automated attacks simultaneously. This is a powerful tool, but there are some obvious tell-tale signs when attacks are carried out by machines that AI can spot. Due to the accuracy of AI, even when attacks break through machine learning can be used to prevent them from happening again.

Lastly, attacks are not always malicious in nature. Around 90% of merchants say that ‘cardholder abuse of the chargeback process is a leading concern for their business. While sometimes this abuse can be intentional, it could also be innocent. For example, a customer might not recognise a charge on their card statement and, instead of looking into it, asks their card provider for a chargeback. It is possible to put systems in place that can dramatically reduce both malicious chargebacks and unintentional ‘friendly fraud’. Having robust order-tracking systems in place is one way to cut down on chargeback claims from customers who think that their order has been lost when it is in fact running late.

Continually evolving to fight fraud

When it comes to fraud prevention, collaboration in terms of tools and expertise is key. As we have seen, by itself SCA isn’t the one and only solution for fraud, but when combined with multiple anti-fraud systems and a focus on learning more about current threats it can become part of a multi-factor solution.

Therefore, although SCA is a step in the right direction, in order to keep up with the fraud ecosystem you will need to be continually evolving too.

Like many places, Latin America has seen the dramatic rise of e-commerce, accelerated by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures. This has been accompanied by the increasing use of alternative payment methods (APMs), such as eCash, digital wallets, and bank transfers. All of this makes Latin America an attractive market for merchants. But a key question is whether these changes in consumer habits will endure in the long term?

by Gustavo Ruiz Moya, CEO of eCash for Latin America and Global Head of Open Banking, Paysafe

With a view to better understanding consumers’ payment habits in the region, Paysafe commissioned a survey of 3,000 consumers across Brazil, Chile, and Peru in April 2022.

Our survey paints a positive picture when it comes to how long-term this opportunity really is, with 74% of respondents in the Lost in Transaction survey saying their payment habits have changed permanently since the start of the pandemic.

This means it’s an exciting time for consumers and merchants. Access to the internet and e-commerce through mobile phones is growing, and different ways to pay are driving greater choice and inclusivity for consumers. Merchants can now look slightly differently at a region that might have seemed prohibitive in the past due to a lack of local knowledge and partnering opportunities, as well as payment hurdles and difficulties of cross-border transactions.

Latin American countries’ increased digitalization its support of instant payments against the backdrop of a population which is keen to adopt APMs (63% had used a digital or mobile wallet, eCash, or crypto in the last month) has made this a market with huge potential.

Driving greater inclusion through e-cash

Although there are many differences between one Latin American country and another, demographics, banking environments and regulations, and payment preferences, to name but a few, there are also some common characteristics. This includes a general tendency toward an informal economy with a large unbanked population – 45% according to the World Bank. Also, a preference for cash over debit or credit cards, largely driven by the turbulent economic climate over the last decade, access to credit, an air of mistrust of the economic system, and high fees and interest rates of debit and credit cards.

In this environment, alternative payment options are drivers of financial inclusion. Consumers avoid high fees, they conveniently pay in their neighbourhood merchants, no need to go through complex application processes, there are no credit checks, and they don’t have to share a load of sensitive information online. It’s just a better overall experience for the cash-preferred customers.

So there’s no surprise that the use of e-cash is on the rise in Latin America. Our findings tell us that 20% of respondents use e-cash more frequently than they did a year ago, with 17% saying they use it about the same amount as a year ago. Our survey also gathered responses from 8,000 consumers across the UK, US, Canada, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and Italy, and it highlighted more use of eCash in Latin America with 15% saying they used eCash in the last month compared to 9% across Europe and North America.

Security ranks top for consumer concerns

Alternative payment methods such as e-cash, Pix, and QR-code-based services have been increasingly popular over the last couple of years in Latin America. Although reasons such as convenience, simplicity, and speed are good indications of why we have seen this uptake, it also highlights concerns around the security of financial information.

In our survey, 45% of consumers said security is the most important factor when choosing how to pay for online purchases. Further, 66% don’t feel comfortable entering financial details online and 78% are more comfortable using a payment method that doesn’t require them to share their details with merchants.

Payment methods such as eCash remove the need to enter financial or personal details online, giving people access to e-commerce in a way that makes them feel secure. We can also see that 38% of Latin Americans feel they don’t know enough about e-cash, while 21% would use it in the next 2 years if it becomes more widely available. So the key to wider acceptance and uptake is at least in part about understanding alternative payment options as well as how they work. With greater awareness, combined with increasing smartphone adoption (81% by 2025, as mentioned above), e-cash is likely to become a more everyday payment choice across the region.

Cost of living, credit, and crypto

In terms of more general payment trends, the cost of living has had a significant impact on Latin American consumers’ choice of payment method for online purchases, with 63% saying they’ve changed the way they use certain payment methods, compared to 36% in Europe and 39% in North America.

This indicates a willingness to adapt payment habits to circumstances, whether that’s trying to avoid high fees or interest rates – of those who have said they’ve changed their habits, 63% are avoiding using pay-by-instalment plans. Or opt for a method that doesn’t involve credit – 58% are using their debit cards more often, while 45% are using direct bank transfers more regularly. Digital wallets have also seen fast adoption: 35% of consumers say they use them more often as a result of the rising cost of living. And 27% are using e-cash more often for the same reason.

Finally, crypto is starting to gain traction with 8% using it more frequently as a payment method compared to a year ago.

In summary, what once might have seemed a difficult and complex market to enter now presents a rich opportunity for businesses outside Latin America, especially for online merchants with virtual deliverables. It really can be as simple as choosing the right provider with a well-established presence ‘on the ground’ and the regulatory requirements in place to get instant access to local payment networks.

Accelerated changes in the lending industry are reshaping the competitive landscape of loan origination. Borrowers have come to expect the same immediacy in applying for a loan as they do when online shopping for goods or entertainment.

by Brandi Hamilton, Director Marketing Communications, Equifax

Financial institutions (FIs) of all sizes are working diligently to adapt to new customer expectations of speedy and efficient transactions, as well as a fair chance in the lending approval process. Incorporating automation and cloud technology into the lending process will allow FIs to gauge loan repayment propensity more efficiently and allow lenders to say “yes” to more loan applicants.

There are four lending trends that will help FIs create a frictionless loan origination experience for borrowers, while also asserting themselves as industry leaders.

The very meaning of having a job is changing

The workforce has become more mobile, embracing the concept of employees working from home — allowing leeway for traditional employees to take on freelance work or start small businesses to earn additional income. Some have left the traditional workforce altogether and are pursuing solopreneurship full-time. People with jobs are quitting them en masse, and for the 30 to 45 age group — the largest cohort of homebuyers — resignation rates were up more than 20 percent from 2020 to 2021. Many workers simply do not want to return to the office. They may also be quitting for various reasons: to look for a new job, join the gig economy, or forge their path as an entrepreneur. The shift was perhaps triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting move to remote work, but it is here to stay. The unpredictable nature of their income complicates these consumers’ financial capacity and how FIs can measure their ability to repay loans.

With potential borrowers diverting away from multi-year histories of job stability and high credit scores, FIs must expand the scope of creditworthiness. Lenders should consider that changes in the way people work do not always equate to loan affordability issues. Borrowers with complex employment profiles should not be denied financial equality due to outdated methods for an individual’s propensity to repay loans.

Financial inclusion

Many Americans who are entering the workforce for the first time face a Catch-22: they can’t get credit because they don’t already have credit. Others are seeking to recover from damage to their credit records because of an extended period of unemployment, family changes, or other life events. By considering alternative data for determining creditworthiness, lenders can foster greater financial inclusion.

Financial inclusion leads to FIs attracting diverse groups of borrowers across all generations, regardless of their credit file. “Thin file” or “credit invisible” applicants face higher rates of denial amongst underserved demographics.

FIs embracing alternative data will allow expanded access to credit inclusion through tailored digital experiences that better serve marginalized communities and those with unique circumstances. Ensuring underserved consumers aren’t continually left without access to credit and capital can be a critical step to financial inclusion.

Fortunately, there are a few easy ways for lenders to address more financial inclusion for all — while reaping the benefits along the way. And it all starts with data.

Alternative data and APIs

Historically, consumers had less access to credit and data information. But today, collaboration and access technologies enable third-party access to personal account data through application programming interfaces (APIs). This open data exchange allows fintechs, banks, and third-party providers to share financial data through a digital ecosystem that requires little effort. These instant and seamless data transfers enable consumers to get loans faster and more efficiently.

APIs and the use of alternative data also create opportunities for potential borrowers by narrowing the space between traditional banking and lending and the evolving fintech category. For example, FIs can expand their use of data to capture more accurate financial strength indicators, resulting in lenders having the ability to say “yes” to more applicants while reducing risk and default rates and improving operational efficiencies.

This holistic view potentially enables an untapped demographic of quality borrowers to get approved for loans, establishing security and wealth development for underserved communities.

Low friction lending could mean improved customer experience

When it comes to lending, many borrowers demand the same speed when applying for a loan as they do when they make purchases with large online retailers. Automating loan origination tasks and processes allows for a fast, flexible, low friction lending process that feels easy and convenient. In addition, evolving consumer trends and preferences mean lenders should continue to streamline processes and leverage data to meet consumer expectations. Banks leveraging these and other technologies can reduce the number of steps consumers may encounter applying for a loan – filling out a cumbersome application, contacting employers to provide proof of income and employment, or providing sensitive banking log-in or payroll credentials to share data.

Having automated and secure technology solutions integrated during decisioning can reduce the need to request sensitive banking log-in credentials or outdated paper-based processes. As a result, some applicants may walk away from business transactions that inconvenience them. Adopting a digital lending process that attracts diverse borrowers across all generations, regardless of their credit file, and providing exceptional lending experiences is key to surviving the evolving lending landscape.

Keeping up with these consumer trends will better equip FIs to serve their borrowers’ unique circumstances better. A positive and fast borrower interaction without friction is critical to FIs reaping success. Lenders that meet the demands for a digital-first, frictionless experience and incorporate open data will become preferred lenders of the future.

Recently we have seen unprecedented movements in the financial markets. With the crypto crash and the recent stagnation of the stock markets, some have been left scrambling to recoup their losses.

by Roger James Hamilton, Founder and CEO of Genius Group 

Globally, Governments have been spending big on stimulus packages, and inflation has hit record numbers. We are living in unprecedented times, and we are heading into what experts agree is a highly unpredictable future for investors and businesses.

Yet, in times of the greatest crises lie major opportunities. Now is not the time to continue with the same investment strategies you had been doing prior to 2022. Here, we look at 10 key investment trends that every investor should know. 

Dollar destruction

Due to the recent pandemic, 35% of all U.S. Dollars in existence have been printed in the last 10 months. But endlessly printing money does not help economies and creates further divide in the wealth gap.

With inflation soaring and money being worth less and less, banks around the world are predicting a recession towards the end of 2023 and early 2024. This recession is said to be worse than we have previously seen with things getting worse before we start to see any recovery.

To combat inflation there is actually very little a country can do other than printing more to make the physical currency more expensive to store and move. But by doing this interest rates increase, which can then in turn lower growth. These economic trends are currently playing out, with Deutsche Bank recently informing investors that they are expecting the worst recession in history to hit in late 2023.

The Age of Exponentials

At the beginning of Society 5.0, the imagination society is coming into play, where digital transformation and creativity from a diverse population will accelerate technological growth and adoption. Big data harvested by IoT and converted into a new type of intelligence by AI, will impact every corner of society and change our infrastructure for the better. People will see their lives become more comfortable and sustainable as they are provided with the products and services in real-time, as they need them. Investments will be focused on the future with any disruptive or innovative technology being lucrative.

The Meme Generation

As individuals using memes became viral it was then realised this pathway could lead to becoming an influencer which can be a lucrative job with some people becoming multi-millionaires from it. Meme investments using products or brands do a similar thing and are created to attract retail investors to invest in the company stocks and shares. This idea that a simple meme can create huge visibility for a brand is one that takes skill but can be worth the investment as it’s a quick way to get brands in front of a huge audience.

The DeFi economy

Historically we’ve used various different devices for different uses, think video cameras, cameras, CD players and the radio. Now we have just one device – our phones to do everything. The same is happening with services, think taxi ranks that are now being replaced with Uber or Google replacing libraries. Everything is becoming streamlined and minimised. The same is happening with financial services where the decentralised system has fewer transaction points and middlemen. Ethereum could displace many traditional financial services and its native token Ether could compete as global money.

Stocks & Crypto Trading

Traditional currency is being taken away from the individual at source via taxes, bank charges, the rising costs of goods and currency debasement. Investing in stocks and crypto can give you returns of around 5% to even 15% if you just have the strategies to invest wisely. When you then add money each month you may well see your profits grow via the power of compounding.

Marcus De Maria, Founder and Chairman of Investment Mastery, comments: “The recent crypto crash has been difficult for the industry and the death of crypto has been bandied around so many times, but we have never seen it actually fail. Many investors will see this as a huge opportunity if you buy it low; you stand to see a massive % increase as it goes back up. This is the fundamental strategy we use when investing – we invest when prices are low and aim to have a really low average value across our portfolio.”

The Digital Decade

Everything that we do is being digitised and will encompass society 5.0.; in the digital decade, this will be apparent through a digital overlay on your day-to-day experience. The revenue from the virtual world could approach $400 Billion by 2025. Global gaming and AR and VR markets will drive this growth. Investing in these areas or companies that are implementing these technologies is a good idea as they are likely to see huge growth over the next few years.

The Rise of Robots

Automation will empower humans and increase productivity and wage growth. It has the potential to shift unpaid labour to paid labour and Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest believes that automation will add 5% or $1.2 trillion to US GDP over the next 5 years. The metaverse and the gaming industry are driving the change of automation. AI and ML will help this change happen as we will see automation get smarter and take on volumes of information that would take humans much longer. We will see companies using AIs as their CEOs and they will be making better and smarter decisions.

Genius Generation

Entrepreneurship will become a vocation and will be taught in school and as a preferred option for employment by 2025. This is what Genius Group believes and is forecasting for the industry.  Edtech will continue to improve people’s skills, wealth, and life chances with more education available to a wider demographic. The UN sustainable development goals will be met by people and companies who have invested in themselves and in the future.

Wholesale Investing

By teaming up with other like-minded groups or collaborators, investors can access a vast new area of wholesale investing. As with purchasing wholesale, the price is usually cheaper as you are buying in bulk, and you are able to find market opportunities that wouldn’t usually be open to an individual.

If you take the idea of retail or the stock market, you are buying at price, whereas when you team up with others there are new offers that are available to you. Using the power of the crowd you become an insider rather than an outsider.

Time for Impact

Buying property has always been a popular investment and given that the population is growing, and property won’t ever go to zero, banks are happy to lend. When growing a property portfolio, you can make infinite ROI by releasing money as the property increases in value, which leads to a tax-free cash-back to invest in the next property.

Simon Zutshi, CEO of CrowdProperty, says: “For those that can’t afford a whole house, it is still possible to invest in property via a group scheme or crowdfunding. The members of property investors network (pin) have benefitted from this form of investment and have even said that investing in this way can see better returns.”

The Online Safety Bill, a landmark piece of legislation which has been five years in the making, has stirred up a lot of debate in recent weeks.

by Martin Wilson, CEO, Digital Identity Net 

It is designed to lay down in law a set of rules about how online platforms should behave to better protect their customers and users. The bill covers a wide range of issues including the spreading of illegal content, protecting children from harmful material and protecting individuals against fraud.

Even before its introduction, various parts of the bill were drip-fed via the media, such as measures to protect people from anonymous trolls, protect children from pornography and stamp out illegal content. Each development was met with intense scrutiny.

And since its introduction, this has continued with many current and former politicians, tech execs and business leaders sharing their views on the bill described by the UK government as ‘another important step towards ending the damaging era of tech self-regulation’.

But is it enough to protect people online?

Welcome change

The rules the bill sets out to change have needed updated for a long time. The bill brings more clarity and should be easier to police.

At last, big tech will be held accountable as the bill imposes a duty of care on social media platforms to protect users from harmful content, at the risk of a substantial fine brought by Ofcom, the communications industry regulator implementing the act.

It’s a step towards making the internet a safer, collaborative place for all users, rather than leaving it in its current ‘Wild West’ state, where many people are vulnerable to abuse, fraud, violence and in some cases even loss of life.

User verification

An initial issue I had with the earlier version of the bill, is that it positions algorithms which can spot and deal with abusive content as the main solution. This does not prevent the problem; it merely enables action to be taken after the event.

Arguably in recognition of this, the UK Government recently added the introduction of user verification on social media. It will enable people to choose only see content from users who have verified they are who they say they are – all of which are welcomed.

But the Government isn’t clear on what those accounts look like and its suggestions on how people can verify their identity are flawed. The likes of passports and sending a text to a smartphone simply aren’t fit for the digital age.

Account options

 In my view, there should be three account options for social media users.

• Anonymous accounts: available for those who need it e.g., whistle blowers, journalists or people under threat. There will still be a minority who use this for nefarious reasons, but this is a necessary price to pay to maintain anonymity for those who need it. The bad actors will receive the focus of AI to identify and remove content and hold the platforms to account.
• Verified account: Orthonymous (real name) – accounts that use a real name online (e.g., LinkedIn) and are linked to a verified person.
• Verified accounts: Pseudonymous – accounts that use an online name that does not necessarily identify the actual user to peers on the network (e.g., some Twitter), but are linked to verified accounts by the services of an independent third-party provider. Leaving identification in the hands of the social media platforms would only enable them to further exploit personal information for their own gain and not engender the security and trust a person needs to use such a service. The beauty of this approach is that it remains entirely voluntary and in the control of each individual to choose whether to verify themselves or continue to engage in the anonymous world we currently live in.

We expect that most users would choose to only interact with verified accounts if such a service was available and so the abuse and bile from anonymous, unverified accounts can be turned off. After all, who doesn’t want a nicer internet where there are no trolls or scammers?

Verifying users

In terms of verification, the solution is a simple one. Let’s look to digital identity systems which let people prove who they are without laborious and potentially unreliable manual identity checks.

Using data from the banks, which have already verified 98% of the UK adult population, social media firms can ensure their users are who they say they are, while users share only the data they want to, so protecting their privacy. This system can also protect underage people from age-restricted content.

Such digital identity systems already exist in countries such as Belgium, Norway and Sweden and have seen strong adoption and usage for a range of use cases. There is of course no suggestion that such a service will eradicate online abuse all on its own, but it would certainly be a big step in the right direction.

Buy-in required

With the introduction of the Online Safety Bill, the UK is now leading the charge on protecting people online and its approach is consistent to those being considered around the world.

However, the Government needs buy-in from social media firms, banks, businesses and consumers to win this fight. By working together and utilising the right tools and partners, we can all help protect people online, making the internet and social media platforms a safer place for all.

In e-commerce, everyone wants to sell more. You can do this in many ways: via social media, through user testimonials, by offering discounts and displaying how many items are left in your inventory. The list goes on.

by Attila Doğan, VP of Product Management, PPRO

The thing is, though, if you want people to click the buy button, they need to first check out. And the checkout is very important for conversion.

In fact, the likelihood of a conversion increases the farther along customers are in the buying journey. It goes to over 45% when customers get to the checkout page and tops 80% on the payment page. This means that if your checkout is good, customers will most likely buy.

So, let’s dive into some key tips on how to make your checkout more consumer-friendly to increase your conversion.

Keep it simple

The more trouble your customers have in navigating your website, the less likely they are to buy. This goes especially for checkouts. For example, the more fields and steps a checkout has, the less likely you are going to see a conversion.

So, make it simple and streamlined by reducing the number of fields or pages available. For fields, only ask for information that is absolutely necessary to complete the transaction. Want customers to sign in to buy? Then create a guest checkout to make things easier for those who do not want to register.

Similarly, if you are keen on having a multiple-page checkout, show your customers where they are in the checkout process. In other words, the design of your checkout should be straightforward, easy to navigate, and clear.

This clarity also goes for the language you use in your checkout. As well as using clear, everyday language, the language of your checkout page should be the same as the rest of your website. So, if your site is in German, then the checkout should be in German.

Be honest

By now, one key rule for checkout improvement should be obvious: make buying easy on your customers when it comes to your checkout’s setup and language.

Going a level deeper, this also means that you need to be honest. Pricing should be transparent at all times so there aren’t any surprises at checkout. 48% of shoppers abandon carts because of extra costs such as shipping, taxes, and higher fees than expected.

The solution? Let customers know of any estimated fees, early on. And offering free shipping is always a good idea.

Make it secure

Shoppers do not only want simple and honest checkouts that are easy to navigate. They want to feel safe when shopping online.

On the merchant side, estimates say online fraud can cost merchants over $12 billion per year. So, it is extremely important that your checkout is secure. Artificial intelligence can be used to put off fraudsters without getting in the way of discouraging real customers.

It also helps to make customers feel safer if you show a security designation, such as an SSL certificate, which means your website is authentic and connections to it are encrypted.

Diversify your devices

We live in an age where people shop on phones, tablets, and desktops. Worldwide, there are around 15 billion mobile devices, which include tablets and smartphones. From that mix, about 4 billion people across the globe own smartphones, and their shopping experiences have to run smoothly on all devices, including when it comes to checking out. This means ensuring your checkout works well on multiple devices and operating systems.

The right payment methods

This one may seem obvious, but you have to have the right payment methods in your checkout. The “right” payment options are the ones your customers use and want. Since the preferred methods change depending on where you are in the world, you need to know how people like to pay wherever you are selling.

In fact, 77% of online purchases in 2021 were made with local payment methods (LPMs). For example, popular LPMs in Belgium are Payconiq and Bancontact whereas if you are in Denmark, Dankort, Trustly, and Klarna are favoured options that belong to the payments mix.

The mix, or variety of payment options you offer, is important. No matter where you are selling, your customers like to pay in multiple different ways when checking out. So, if they see their preferred method at checkout, the more likely they will hit the buy button.

How to know you have nailed conversion

Ideally, you would do all of the above and sales would shoot up. But, as we all know, e-commerce is complex and things are rarely so simple.

This means that you should have a good handle on your checkout data, including where people are getting stuck. And you should also consider A/B testing to fine-tune your checkout process.

Considering all of the above, putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and making their online shopping experience as seamless and easy as possible will eventually lead to the increased conversion rates you’re seeking.