
Islamic Finance FAQ: A Global Finance Series
Islamic finance is a fast-growing $2 trillion industry, yet many finance professionals do not know halal from haram. Global Finance's series on Islamic finance explains.
The Innovators 2015 - Transactions Services, is Global Finance's annual listing of key innovations in treasury and transaction services.
Categories Of Innovation* |
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PRODUCT INNOVATION |
A good or service that is new or significantly improved. This includes upgrades in technical specifications, components and materials, software, user friendliness or other functional characteristics. |
PROCESS INNOVATION |
A new or significantly improved production or delivery method. This includes changes in techniques, equipment and/or software. |
MARKETING INNOVATION |
A new marketing method involving significant changes in product design or packaging, product placement, product promotion or pricing. |
ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION |
A new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations. |
*From the OECD Oslo Manual Of Innovation
Category of Innovation: Process/Marketing
“Banco Agrícola amigo” and “Banquero amigo” aim to increase banking for the unbanked by using a financial correspondents model for banking services.
Banco Agrícola is providing services and banking transactions, and offering savings solutions and other financial products, via diverse commercial establishments in locales across El Salvador, thus providing banking solutions to communities that previously did not have immediate access to financial services—promoting development, sustainability and financial inclusion.
Category of Innovation: Product
“Transferencias Moviles” for mobile remittance allows customers to send money to anyone who owns a cellphone in Guatemala.
The receiver can cash out via any Banco Industrial ATM without the need for a credit or debit card—using their mobile phone. This enables money transfers from banked customers to any person (banked or unbanked).
Category of Innovation: Product
DirectRemit provides fee-free cross-border money transfers within 60 seconds to accounts with Emirates NBD partner banks in certain countries and transfers within one day to accounts held with other banks.
The system uses a secure Web service integration with partner banks via API & XML-based architecture, providing near- real-time transfers and an enhanced user experience. DirectRemit is now available between the UAE and India, Pakistan and the Philippines (all very large remittance markets), with other countries scheduled for development.
Category of Innovation: Product
Fidor Bank, based in Germany, is the first fully licensed bank to integrate an open source, distributed, consensus ledger (a blockchain, as is used with crypto- currencies) to make secure payments.
The bank integrated Ripple Labs’ block- chain protocol for payments and plans to use it as a backbone for global money transfers—and make use of its near-real-time settlement capabilities to support interbank payments.
Category of Innovation: Product
The modular, software-as-a-service (SAAS) retail banking platform enables new players to enter the UK banking and financial services market quickly, and helps existing financial institutions to rapidly expand their product offerings, digital experience and service models.
A new banking system that could have taken two or three years to build can be implemented in as little as six months.
Category of Innovation: Product
Lendstar is a global, Peer2Peer social financial network, where “friends” can borrow, collect, prepay, split, send and spend money in real time.
It is a free app that can be linked to bank accounts for managing funds transfer. The firm has also launched a Lendstar prepaid credit card.
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