Data-driven fintech and the IoT evolution
The use of data and innovative IoT technologies is rapidly changing the financial sector, including allowing greater insight into the customer
The financial services sector has used customer and contextual data to make better, more informed decisions for many years.
With that in mind, it gores without saying that the more data an organisation can gather, the better it can protect its interests and create value for itself and its customers.
Today, 3.5 billion people own and use a smartphone which collects massive amounts of data from a single endpoint. In fact, the rate at which we as a species create data is exponentially increasing.
It’s estimated that 90% of all the data in the world was created in the last two years, for example.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices may help us process payments, monitor metal fatigue and know when to order printer ink, but all those applications are, at their core, data gathering.
IoT devices are sensory endpoints that collect information about the world around them - examples include smart devices, wearables and more.
With the number of such devices set to increase dramatically over the coming decade, the amount of data available to everyone from retailers to insurance agencies is set to experience another exponential hike.
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Deeper and more granular insight
In the fintech sector, this information is expected to be invaluable.
According to Jordan McKee at Forbes, “longer-term, the latent – and more lucrative – IoP revenue opportunity will be found in harnessing the explosion of new data inputs that can provide deeper and more granular insights on customer behavior."
McKeen added: "The opportunities for new data streams generated by IoT devices and sensors are endless and will serve to bolster decision-making accuracy in areas ranging from fraud prevention to ‘know your customer’ (KYC) requirements, to lending to targeted offers and recommendations.”
One of the most important ongoing conversations in the world of tech revolves around privacy and information security.
As the amount of data in the world grows - and companies take further steps to harness and capitalise on the value of that data - global cybersecurity efforts need to keep pace with increased risk and higher stakes.
In 2018, the Mirai botnet attack saw teen scammers take advantage of insecure IoT devices to effectively take down the internet across much of the eastern United States. Companies - particularly in the finance and payments sector - need to recognise that increasing IoT capabilities means increasing security as well.
Case study: Armis
Founded in 2015, Armis is a silicon valley cybersecurity firm focused on IoT threat prevention.
“The promise of productivity and collaboration with all these new devices can only come to fruition if they are safe and secure,” commented Yevgeny Dibrov, CEO & Co-Founder of Armis.
Dibrov’s company provides IoT security solutions to the finance, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and smart city development sectors.
The Armis platform is the first agentless, completely passive security platform to tackle the IoT security space, using the company’s unique technology stack to continuously discover and profile devices in the client’s environment, analysing their behavior to identify risks and attacks autonomously.
For more information on all topics for FinTech, please take a look at the latest edition of FinTech magazine.
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