{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-blogpost-tsx","path":"/blog/international-womens-day","result":{"pageContext":{"isCreatedByStatefulCreatePages":false,"id":"ab52ac81-b0c2-5f8a-afe2-ff24583881eb","title":"#EachForEqual","slug":"international-womens-day","published":"2020-03-06T00:00:00.000Z","author":"Gemma Doswell","content":"On Sunday 8th March, we’ll be celebrating International Women’s Day, a day that celebrates women’s (aplenty) achievements, raises awareness about gender inequality and encourages us to take action against bias. So of course, at Paybase, it’s something that we firmly stand behind.\n\nThe theme this year is #EachforEqual - because an equal world is an enabled world. In the context of tech, this is especially important. [PWC](https://www.pwc.co.uk/who-we-are/women-in-technology/time-to-close-the-gender-gap.html) found in 2017 that just 3% of women said that a career in technology was their first choice and that 78% of students were unable to name a famous woman working in technology. In 2018, [Tech Nation](https://technation.io/insights/diversity-and-inclusion-in-uk-tech-companies/) found that just 22% of tech directors were women and an even lower 19% of tech workers were female despite the statistic of female workers in the UK being 49%.\n\nBut [\"we can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women's achievements.\"](https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Theme) For those of us working in tech, in particular those of us in leadership roles, we can endeavour to create a culture of diversity and to champion equality within the workspaces that we inhabit.\n\n## What can be done?\n\n[In 2018](https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/statistics/core-stem-graduates-2018/), the portion of female graduates in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) was just 9%. A [UCAS](https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2019/09/women-in-stem-percentages-of-women-in-stem-statistics) study furthermore found that specifically in computer science, engineering and technology, the fields \"show the largest gender imbalances from current students, to graduates and the workforce figures\". The figures decrease as the candidates progress through each stage, demonstrating that retention is also a problem in the STEM space.\n\nTo address this, three steps that can be taken are:\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/iwd-steps.png)\n\n## The women of Paybase\n\nAt Paybase, we’re proud to maintain a good gender balance in our senior management team, confronting head-on the traditional lack of women in leadership roles in the FinTech space. We asked some of our team about why a gender balance at work was important to them and how they thought it could impact overall experience.\n\nWe spoke to our Product Designer Ella who works closely with the tech team. She said, *\"I think if you are the only woman in a tech team, the amount of emotional labour expected of you can be high. The men (I think subconsciously) can try and seek more emotional support/guidance from you which makes establishing boundaries difficult.\"* She continued, *\"I also feel the level of scrutiny of your work can be higher because you stand out more as a woman in that environment. Even within the best intended teams, it’s hard to remove our own bias.\"*\n\n*\"The personality traits of men and women are vastly different,\"* Head of Growth, Jessy told us. *\"And any organisation benefits from having a bit of both to balance their culture. I’ve generally found the following characteristics to be common in the female colleagues that I’ve worked with*:\n\n* *a stronger tendency to pay attention to detail*\n\n* *a strong ability to multitask*\n\n* *high levels of empathy\"*\n\nFor me (Gemma, Content Manager), I’ve found that a gender mix works better than a single-gendered organisation. I’ve worked with all women and with mostly male-led businesses and both felt like they lacked balance. But a gender balance isn’t the only ingredient to diversity. Ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economics, experience, age etc. are as important - and I really believe that they need to be a conscious concern of the business to be tackled effectively. It is not enough to hope for diversity to occur and to applaud its coincidence; maintaining (or creating) diversity should be a consideration at the forefront of the recruitment process.\n\nOur Office Manager, Lola, also believes that tackling diversity is best executed with a formal function. *\"I think that companies should work towards having a full diversity function. Sheree Atcheson, who works as the Head of Diversity and Inclusion for Monzo, is a great role model for women in tech. She emphasises the importance of understanding all different types of diversity and making them a priority, not only diversity of gender.\"*\n\nOur Head of Compliance Rachel, former Head of Compliance in Banking Services at Starling Bank, agreed. *\"Gender equality/diversity brings with it greater diversity of thought, which is so important to a) increase relevance to your customers, and b) to provide better problem solving through diversity of experiences. We therefore need to make sure that we think not only about gender, but also about race, age, affluence, educational background, etc. Having visible senior women is also crucial to inspiring future female leaders to enter a career in FinTech and to stay in the sector.\"*\n\nWe then spoke to Anna, our CEO. *“I’ve been lucky in my career so far that the roles that led me to Paybase were all unusually female-first (given the traditionally male-led industries). Working in these female-empowered environments has been a significant advantage, especially in terms of dispelling myths and misconceptions about women working in certain positions in male-led industries. Businesses significantly benefit from varied, healthy dialogue; a gender-balanced workforce at all levels of seniority is crucial to this.”*\n\nFinally, we spoke with Ana, one of our tech team. *“I couldn’t agree more with every single one of the points my colleagues made. On being an outnumbered woman in the Tech Team, as Ella pointed out, it can be difficult from a work scrutiny and emotional labour point of view as well as in terms of varying styles of communication.”* She continued, *“Of course, I understand that this because we all grew up in different societies - and each with meticulously designed boxes of what we should and shouldn’t be - but it’s really important that we feel safe to just speak up. At Paybase I feel I am empowered enough to do just that - to speak up and stand by my views without fear of consequences and hopefully empower others regardless of gender, ethnicity or sexuality to do the same”*\n\n## Say hello to our team\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/iwd-group.png)","excerpt":"On Sunday 8th March, we’ll be celebrating International Women’s Day, a day that celebrates women’s (aplenty) achievements, raises awareness about gender inequality and encourages us to take action against bias. So of course, at Paybase, it’s somethin...","cover":{"src":"https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/iwd-power.jpg","alt":"need one"},"link":{"to":"/blog/international-womens-day","copy":"Read more"},"tags":["International Women’s Day","Women in Tech","Diversity"],"related":[{"id":"008de809-2818-5f9a-9a09-122663757069","title":"Women in FinTech – Our Stories","slug":"women-in-fintech","published":"2018-03-08T00:00:00.000Z","author":"Dan Whale","content":"\nTo mark International Women’s Day we sat down with some of the women of Paybase! Here at Paybase the split between women and men is nearly 50/50, but we understand this is sadly nowhere near the norm in the FinTech industry. It’s our vision to change payments, and an industry that is more accessible to all is definitely something we want to build towards. We spoke to our female team members to discuss their experiences and what can be done to address the gender imbalance in FinTech.\n\n#### Danielle - Head of Compliance\n\n**Hi Danielle. Tell us about what you do here at Paybase:**\n\nI’m the Head of Compliance and MLRO. I’m basically in charge of ensuring that the company follows all regulatory requirements. That may be anything from how we communicate what we do to our partners up to investigating money-laundering and terrorist financing. I’m responsible for building and implementing the controls that the firm uses to detect and prevent financial crime.\n\n**Great! And how long have you been working in compliance?**\n\n5 years now. I started interning in compliance when I was at law school and stuck with it.\n\n**What is it that you like about compliance?**\n\nI like catching the bad guys! Speaking more generally I like problem-solving, making sure what the business wants to do can fit within the regulations. With compliance, it’s vital to set the right company mindset. I’ve seen things go very wrong at other firms that view compliance as an unimportant duty to be thought of later. Here at Paybase we acknowledge and respect the regulations, which allows me to get on with my job of making sure we can achieve our goals from a compliance perspective!\n\n**Interesting! Sadly, it’s quite uncommon to see women in senior roles in FinTech, why do you think that is?**\n\nWell, in terms of compliance, you do sometimes have to hold the unpopular opinion - and fight for it. I think men find it easier to be assertive in the sense of projecting their opinion and making sure they get the focus of the room. As a woman you have to be careful to balance asserting your opinion and getting the attention required as it can be perceived as either you are being aggressive, frustrated or too emotionally involved. In fact, you are just passionate about something.\n\n**I see, and how do you think this problem is best addressed?**\n\nI think more women in senior management would be a good step, it would lead to a greater understanding of how women approach things and change the shape and tone of discussions for the better. If I raise my voice in a meeting it should be seen in the same way as a male colleague’s, but at previous companies I’ve worked at that was not always the case. More women in charge would alleviate those sort of issues - and then it becomes this virtuous circle: more women in leadership allow more women to reach leadership positions.\n\n**I’d agree! Do you have any tips for women wanting to get into compliance?**\n\nMy advice would be the same for everyone really! Do some research, read the JMLSG, find out who the big players in the industry are. See if it’s what you’re interested in and go from there! It’s not something you can study specifically, so it’s important to research and decide if it’s something you really want to do - a problem-solving mindset and a desire to do things the right way definitely helps.\n\n**You’re someone who has worked in different countries, are there any notable differences in your experiences?**\n\nDefinitely. I was working for a company whose CTO was based in the Middle-East and I was told that, as a woman, I wasn’t allowed to speak to him directly. We had to go through an intermediary which, whilst helpful for the language barrier, was ridiculous. It was also frustrating as I was just told that ‘this is the situation’ instead of ‘this is the situation, here is how we’ll help you get around it’.\nAs for the US, employers can discriminate against women by denying them access to basic healthcare and maternity leave is almost non-existent, I think my Mom only got 3 weeks off! Things like this make it harder for women to have a family and continue working - but this is across all industries.\n\n**Wow! It’s staggering to think that that can still occur!**\n\nYeah, the UK is better in that sense. However the pay gap is still prevalent everywhere. When I left a previous job I found out I was being paid £10k less than one of my male counterparts and £15k less than the other. I was less experienced, but we all did the same job.\n\n**Shocking!**\n\nYep, it’s definitely something we need to change!\n\n**Thanks for talking to us Danielle!**\n\n\n#### Asma - Junior Software Engineer\n\n**Hello Asma! What’s your day-to-day like at Paybase?**\n\nI’m a coder! I do all sorts of programming, on both the frontend and backend, so my day-to-day is very varied. It’s something that I really like about my job.\n\n**When did you get into code?**\n\nA few years ago. It started out as a hobby, with me taking some online courses in my spare time. I then got a job that provided more training. Soon after, I was here at Paybase!\n\n**There is a large gender imbalance in the tech world, why do you think that is?**\n\nFrom my experience, growing up it’s just not something that’s really presented as an option to you. I don’t just mean in an educational sense, though that definitely is a factor, but culturally. You watch films and TV shows and it’s always little boys playing around with computers and you don’t really see yourself in it. Then you get to school where maybe there would be an after-school club for computer science, but it would be all boys going, so as a teenage girl, you wouldn’t want to go. The whole journey just cements this idea that tech is something which isn’t for you. After all, you don’t want to go into an industry where you don’t think you’ll fit in.\n\n**That makes sense Asma, so how do you think this could be changed?**\n\nMedia definitely needs to play a role in bringing about change. Kids need to watch films where girls are the techies, and not just one token character (if at all). As for schools, it would be good to see female engineers invited in to talk to the students, so young girls know that this is something that is an option for them.\n\n**Do you think women have to act a certain way that their male counterparts don’t?**\n\nYes, definitely. If you’re a woman simply defending your point can be interpreted differently to how it should be. What I’ve also noticed is that when women in tech make mistakes, they’re more likely to beat themselves up about it whereas men tend to let it go. That probably stems from the fact that women feel they have to prove themselves more.\n\n**Are there any tips you would give women going into tech, or any examples of situations where you wish you’d done something differently?**\n\nI’m not sure I’d say differently, but there have been situations where it has been really hard to know how to act. Personally, in the past I’ve had really inappropriate comments from male superiors and it’s hard to know what to do; do you say something and risk making it a really uncomfortable working environment for the rest of your time there (or worse, get fired), or do you not say anything and allow it to go unchecked and get worse. You’re told to speak to HR but that doesn’t always work. It’s hard. It’s something that I’ve left jobs over.\n\nAt Paybase it’s never been an issue and I think that if companies had as many women in senior roles as we do, that behaviour wouldn’t be tolerated. It’s definitely something to build towards.\n\n**We’re certainly glad you’re here with us Asma!**\n\n\n#### Anna - CEO\n\n**Hi Anna! Can you give us a little bit of background to your job?**\n\nYes sure! As CEO I do a bit of everything. I’m in charge of overseeing the company, making sure we have a clear strategy and that everything we do contributes to that strategy. In a general sense I keep on top of our finances, get involved with our marketing strategy and accompany our Head of Partnerships on important sales meetings. I work with our Head of Compliance to ensure we’re as compliant as we can be and with the CTO to implement our tech strategy. I also liaise with Ops to create company processes and find the best possible suppliers. It’s basically my job to bring everything together - it’s certainly varied!\n\n**How long have you been working in Fintech?**\n\nIt started back in 2013 when I was working as an investment manager. One company in our portfolio was a FinTech and as an investment manager, you have to know not only everything about the company but also the nuances of the industry. I became very interested in the challenges that exist in today’s payments industry and the opportunities there are to innovate and improve the sector.\n\n**Interesting! We see proportionately less women in FinTech but even fewer in management and C level roles such as yours. Why do you think that\n is?**\n\nThe honest answer is I don’t know, because there is certainly no excusable reason for it. At Paybase we’re more than aware of the contribution women have made to FinTech. We have a gender balance which is nearly 50% and we’re proud of the fact we have women in senior roles doing great things!\n\n**Are there any other ideas you have to combat this problem?**\n\nThere are certain organisations that exist within FinTech such as Women in Paytech, hosted by the Emerging Payments Association. It’s great that there are communities in which women can discuss these issues and support each other, but that is certainly not the end goal. I strongly believe the best way to solve this by setting the right example - company by company, manager by manager. It’s encouraging women to get into these roles and creating the right environment for them to prosper. Once that happens, the prejudice will fade away - it has to, as it’s baseless.\n\n**Have you ever had issues being a female FinTech CEO?**\n\nThere have certainly been times when I’ve been in an external meeting with our CTO, who is a man, and others in the meeting look at him only when talking to both of us or even when responding to one of my comments. Additionally me and our Head of Compliance Danielle have been in meetings before where men have explained to us what money-laundering is and why it’s bad, as if it were something we weren’t aware of. Certain comments I’ve received, “pretty little thing”, I can definitely do without. As I say, hopefully the more we see women in these roles, the quicker this type of behaviour will disappear - it certainly needs to!\n\n**Thanks for your insight Anna!**\n\n\n#### Jarina - Head of Operations\n\n**Hello Jarina, could you give us a bit of insight as to what you do?**\n\nWell generally speaking, Ops is there to make things happen. I coordinate between different departments making sure that all necessary parties are involved in the decision making process, and that everything progresses smoothly and efficiently.\n\n**I see! And how long have you been working in this field?**\n\nOps and project management? 6 years now!\n\n**So you clearly enjoy it!**\n\nYes, I always like finding improved ways of doing things or designing something to be more efficient. I think Ops sometimes gets overlooked as it’s not always strategy focused, but a strategy is only as good as its implementation!\n\n**Well we certainly value it here! How is it being a woman in Ops? Do you feel there is a gender imbalance?**\n\nOps is very broad and will differ across industries, so it’s hard to make generalisations. What I would say is that it’s definitely true that we see fewer women in senior positions.\n\n**Why do you think that is?**\n\nWell, there aren’t enough female role models in these types of roles. When we do see women in high level positions they tend to be portrayed in a certain way - stern, fearsome, someone who has sacrificed family for career. I think a lot of women don’t see themselves that way so don’t go for these types of roles, which is a shame.\n\nTalking about FinTech more specifically, I think the lack of women has a lot to do with its parent industries. Finance and Technology have always been male dominated and I think that has trickled down. However, for that reason I also see great opportunity. FinTech is still such a young industry, we have the opportunity to mould it and not repeat the mistakes of the past. If we can get women in these types of roles now, creating more role models, we could make FinTech a much more accessible industry for women of the future.\n\n**Good point! You’re Swedish and used to work in Dubai, have you noticed cultural differences when it comes to women in the workplace?**\n\nDubai is the most progressive in the region, but it’s certainly true there could be more women in senior positions there (from my experience at least). As for Sweden, it tends to be at the forefront when it comes to gender equality, with a good example being the generous parental leave that has to be shared amongst the couple.\n\n**Good old Sweden, thanks Jarina!**\n\n\n#### Ana - DevOps Engineer\n**Hey Ana! Tell us a little bit about what you do:**\n\nI'm a Systems Engineer or DevOps Engineer - I build the infrastructure our platform sits on and other tool stacks such as monitoring, alerting and incident management.\n\n**Excellent, and how long have you been in tech?**\n\nThis is officially my 4th year in the industry however I was consulting before and that's a more aggressive, less friendly environment.\n\n**I spoke to Asma about why we see so few women in tech, what are your thoughts?**\n\nI think there are many, many reasons, but it does begin from the early years at school. Young girls were (I'm hoping this is changing) not as encouraged to follow science, maths or computing - it's perceived more of a \"boys thing\". This results in fewer women studying such degrees and even fewer getting into the industry. Then the very few women that enter the industry have a hard time in most companies they join because many men (and even sometimes other women) are biased towards them. Without more women in these roles changing the opinion, the situation remains the same in many places - it’s a bit of a vicious circle.\n\n**Yes Asma also said it started young, how do you think we should address the problem?**\n\nWe should start with schools and teachers - if we empower young girls and tell them that science and maths can be fun and they can do it too that would be the first step in my opinion.\n\nThen for the women already in the industry we need to break the bias. One way of doing this is for everyone to acknowledge that in tech there are both very talented men, and men that struggle a little more. Currently, nobody really thinks about the men in tech that are not as talented; they either change industries or they remain in the shadows. The same doesn't apply to women. If a woman struggles, it’s because she’s a woman, which negatively impacts how all other women in tech are seen because there are so few of us.\n\n**I see, do you have any tips for new female techies?**\n\nYes, a few that really helped me. When I joined the tech world and I was in my early twenties I had the tendency to go along with sexist jokes and laugh and smile when other men in tech would objectify women - I just wanted to fit in. But I'm not proud of it looking back, as by going along with it I was hurting all women in tech including myself. Luckily I’m no longer in an environment that’s remotely like that, but if I ever were again I’d certainly make my thoughts known.\n\nMy second piece of advice would be to build a support group. Having someone who understands the issues, listens and makes you feel better is very important. It doesn't have to be just women in your support network, there are men who have witnessed women in tech being subjected to certain treatments that also understand the issues. Also, don't take it personally if people don't believe you initially - I have a very good friend who didn't believe that it was hard to be a woman in the industry until she joined herself.\n\n**Would you argue that having more women in tech would be something that would benefit everyone?**\n\nI absolutely agree that nobody should hire women in tech for the sake of numbers and diversity but it is very beneficial to have a diverse team - because you're bringing different perspectives to approaching problems (and here I’m not just talking about women). However, I also think you're better off having a team of only men than hiring a woman that is struggling or is not ready to take on the job. If you're hiring just for the sake of diversity you're doing more harm than good, you're increasing the bias and nobody wins.\n\n**That makes sense. What has been the most challenging thing you’ve had to overcome? Would you do anything differently?**\n\nBeing told I was only hired because I was a woman and initially believing it. That was a week into my previous job. Luckily I had, and continue to have, a really good support group that picked me up. It was only when I completed a customer engagement on my own that the company began to realise that they were wrong. After that, they tried very hard to get me to stay. In terms of doing things differently, I should have perhaps gone to HR as opposed to my managers that didn’t seem to care, though truthfully I’m not sure it would have helped that much. The person who said that to me continues to work at the company, has been promoted a few times and continues to act in the same way even though I confronted him and he said he was wrong.\n\nTo be honest, working at Paybase is the first time in my career that my only problems are engineering problems. It feels great, it makes me want to grow and be a much better engineer than I am today.\n\n**Wow! Glad to hear you’re enjoying it here Ana!**\n\n\nSo whilst some progress has been made, there clearly remains a lot to be done. Hopefully the suggestions of our employees and other women in FinTech are listened to and this generation can make FinTech an accessible and enjoyable industry for all. We at Paybase do all that we can to help women progress in FinTech, primarily through being an example on how effective a diverse team can be!\n\nIf you’re interested in working at Paybase (whether you’re a man or a woman) please get in touch!\n\n[Twitter](https://twitter.com/paybase)  [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/paybase/)\n","excerpt":"\nTo mark International Women’s Day we sat down with some of the women of Paybase! Here at Paybase the split between women and men is nearly 50/50, but we understand this is sadly nowhere near the norm in the FinTech industry. It’s our vision to chang...","cover":{"src":"https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/women-in-fintech-hero.png","alt":"need one"},"link":{"to":"/blog/women-in-fintech","copy":"Read more"},"tags":["Women in Tech","FinTech","Diversity"]},{"id":"e1c7e509-c45e-5a81-9d38-c22a68adb712","title":"Coins and tokens - can you spot the difference?","slug":"coins-and-tokens","published":"2020-02-26T00:00:00.000Z","author":"Gemma Doswell","content":"Although the terms are often used interchangeably, crypto coins and crypto tokens are in fact not the same. Both are decentralised and based on blockchain technology, but coins and tokens have different functions. They, therefore, reside in different spaces of the digital finance market.\n\n## So what is Bitcoin?\n\n[Bitcoin](https://www.paybase.io/blog/crypto-intro) was the first and most popularised cryptocurrency. It is a coin - its function is a store of value and it can be used, similar to fiat money, to pay for things. Like Bitcoin, crypto coins all exist on their own individual blockchains and it is on these that all coin transactions can be recorded. More examples of crypto coins are Litecoin, Monero, Stellar and Namecoin.\n\nThe [European Central Bank](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemesen.pdf) described virtual currencies as “digital money in an unregulated environment, issued and controlled by its developers and used as a payment method among members of a specific virtual community.” As on the Bitcoin blockchain, the exchange of crypto coins is maintained and authorised democratically by the network (or [nodes](https://www.paybase.io/blog/crypto-jargon)) on each blockchain.\n\nCoins have all of the six following properties:\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/coin-properties.png)\n\n## Why not just use traditional money?\n\nThere are copious reasons why people opt to use crypto coins. The most obvious is to attempt to make money. Over the past decade, the value of certain high-profile currencies (namely Bitcoin) has fluctuated so much that the value of one unit has gone from fractions of a penny to over £18,000. But investment in crypto coins is only the start.\n\nAnother popular use case is anonymity. Coins like Monero offer near-untraceable, anonymous transactions, boasting resilient security and high levels of privacy - and this has gained it a loyal user-base. Further use cases include security, censorship resistance and international remittances.\n\n## What is a token?\n\nA token is more like an asset. In the same way that Virgin air miles can only be used with Virgin, a crypto token sits on a blockchain (or a [dApp](https://www.paybase.io/blog/crypto-jargon) built on a blockchain) and can only be used to power services within that ecosystem. [CoinTelegraph](https://cointelegraph.com/ico-101/what-is-an-ico-token-and-how-does-it-work) explained, “If it's a fashion startup, one token can be equal to one dress or a yearly license of a software in the case of a hi-tech startup. You even can issue tokens of yourself and a token holder will be able to buy an hour of your work with the token.”\n\nTheoretically, anything in the world can be tokenised. Examples of prominent tokens are Tether, Waves and ERC-20.\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/token-properties.png)\n\n## Where does that leave Ethereum?\n\nJust to be confusing, the Ethereum blockchain combines both coins and tokens.\n\nIt is made up of Ether (ETH) coins and ERC-20 tokens. How could this be? Ether is used to fuel the transactions on the Ethereum blockchain and ERC-20 tokens fuel Ethereum’s main use case.\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/ethereum-exchange.png)\n\nUsing these tokens, the Ethereum blockchain enables developers to build their own decentralised apps. Tokens that are built on the Ethereum blockchain enable developers both to utilise smart contract technology and they also maintain a consistent technical standard for all dApps created.\n\nWant to find out more about the blockchain basics? Take a look at our latest blogs [here](https://www.paybase.io/blog).","excerpt":"Although the terms are often used interchangeably, crypto coins and crypto tokens are in fact not the same. Both are decentralised and based on blockchain technology, but coins and tokens have different functions. They, therefore, reside in different...","cover":{"src":"https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/coins-centred.jpg","alt":"need one"},"link":{"to":"/blog/coins-and-tokens","copy":"Read more"},"tags":["Blockchain","Cryptocurrency","Digital Currency"]},{"id":"8733d965-b467-5950-ac71-faca0c501cef","title":"Paybase predicts...","slug":"paybase-predictions-2020","published":"2020-02-21T00:00:00.000Z","author":"Gemma Doswell","content":"## What we said in 2018\n\nIn 2018, we spoke to the [Fintech Times](https://thefintechtimes.com/payments-paybase/) about what was to come in 2019. We predicted that as the effects of open banking and PSD2 developed, we would see the Payment Initiation Services Provider (PISP) functionality become a more mainstream alternative to the checkout experience. We also predicted that regulation would be viewed by more businesses as an enabler to innovation as opposed to a restriction from it. Finally, we foresaw that there would be a greater appreciation for the need for smooth crypto-to-fiat (and vice versa) interoperability, bringing blockchain tech further into mainstream culture and making it more accessible to businesses and consumers alike.\n\n## Trends\n\nLast year, we came to the end of another technologically-driven decade, seeing payments regulation intensify and widen (with 5AMLD set to affect cryptocurrencies for the first time), financial innovation continue to develop and rapid growth in the blockchain space. We also saw banks increasingly partnering with FinTechs to offer more innovative capabilities, the rise of biometric technology to secure our transactions and a plethora of flexible ways to pay.\n\nHere are the top five trends that we saw emerge across the FinTech, platform and crypto industries:\n\n**1. The above and beyond marketplace**\n\nOver the last decade, the platform business model exploded in popularity with startups being launched every day around the world. But owing to the short life span of many startups, a new trend emerged: growth at all costs was no longer the be-all and end-all. Many marketplaces focused on growing efficiently and going above and beyond to reduce the risk of early [disintermediation](https://paybase.io/blog/retaining-buyers-sellers). Rather than focusing purely on bringing new users to a platform, many businesses encouraged existing buyers and sellers to migrate their relationships online, therefore securing a wider range of users to their platform.\n\n**2. Libra and the push for crypto regulation** \n\nThe buzzword of last year. Libra divided the opinions of the financial community and regulators alike. Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency, Libra, was to launch in 2020, but the project was described as a risk to financial stability, financial crime and [“a threat to sovereign currencies”](https://www.coindesk.com/facebooks-zuckerberg-appears-to-put-libra-launch-date-in-doubt). Libra did however open the conversation for regulation in the cryptocurrency space. 5AMLD - the 5th Anti-money Laundering Directive - which was already set to include cryptocurrencies in its legislation, came into force in January 2020 and we believe that it is the first of many significant steps forward in the legislative treatment of digital currencies.\n\n **3. The rise in popularity of Progressive Web Apps**\n\nDespite not being strictly new, Progressive Web Apps are the new standard for building a web application. They are the evolution of traditional web pages into immersive apps which provides a first-class user experience. The key features of a PWA are:\n\n* A user interface (UI) that is similar to a mobile app in terms of usability\n\n* Push notifications\n\n* Offline capabilities enabling users to continue using the application if they lose connection\n\n* Automatic updates behind the scenes\n\n* Fully responsive (mobile, tablet and desktop-friendly) with a capacity to work across browsers with little difference\n\n**4. The prominence of network effects**\n\nNetwork effects work on the basic principle that the more people join a network, the stronger the network becomes - think of the way a business like Monzo is able to build value. The more people that use Monzo, the wider their network and the more valuable their features (such as P2P payments) become. With the likes of platform giants like Uber, Amazon Marketplace, Airbnb and more, the power of building a strong community became even more apparent. Network effects allow businesses to extend their reach significantly - and Facebook’s announcement of Libra brought the monopolising potential of network effects even further to the forefront of attention.\n\n **5. Strong UX and the tribal consumer**\n\nAs the trend of hyper-personalisation grew across the FinTech industry with both challenger banks and financial products honing in on the technology, consumers began to form loyal communities in support of them. [“Tribes arise when consumers identify as a group based more on common collective behaviors than on demographics.”](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nikkibaird/2018/08/26/tribal-marketing-and-the-need-for-a-radical-redefinition-of-brand/#33fee47d7090) Monzo, Starling, N26 and Klarna were just a few examples of businesses that attracted tribes of users. And they did this by putting seamless UX at the forefront of their offering, making it easier than ever for their users to pay, receive payment and navigate around their products.\n\n## Predictions\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/paybase-predictions-infographic.png)\n\n","excerpt":"What we said in 2018\n\nIn 2018, we spoke to the Fintech Times about what was to come in 2019. We predicted that as the effects of open banking and PSD2 developed, we would see the Payment Initiation Services Provider (PISP) functionality become a more...","cover":{"src":"https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/money-growth.jpg","alt":"need one"},"link":{"to":"/blog/paybase-predictions-2020","copy":"Read more"},"tags":["Predictions","FinTech trends","Blockchain trends"]}]}}}