The internet is dramatically transforming the way business is done, particularly for financial services. Digital Finance takes a thoughtful look at how the industry is evolving, and it explains how to integrate concepts of digital finance into existing traditional finance platforms. This book explores what successful companies are doing to maximize their opportunities in this context and offers suggestions on how to introduce digital finance into a firm’s structure. Specific strategies for a digital future are presented, alongside numerous case studies that explore key attributes of success. In recognition of the rapidly evolving nature of finance today, Digital Finance is accompanied by a website maintained by the author (PerryBeaumont.com), as well as links to other content with insightful articles, analyses, and opinions. For both practitioners and students of finance, Digital Finance provides a rich context for a better understanding of the landscape of finance today, and lays the foundation for us to process and create the financial innovations of tomorrow.

Explores how the financial industry will be affected by developments in blockchain and cryptocurrencies at the dawn of a new digital age in finance Our financial system is in the midst of a digital revolution. Blockchain, viewed by many experts as “the most important invention since the Internet,” has changed the way we exchange value and information. Although most people are aware of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, few understand how security tokens—digitized forms of traditional ownership certificates—can drive blockchain to reach its fullest potential by offering investors features and innovations that are simply not possible with paper certificates. Digital Finance: Security Tokens and Unlocking the Real Potential of Blockchain explains how the integration of blockchain and security token technology will transform the current financial infrastructure and radically improve efficiency, transparency, and security. Using clear language and an easy-to-follow framework, author Baxter Hines draws upon his decades’ experience in the financial industry to address how the digitization of assets will drive cost reductions, enhance flexibility, and pave the way for new business models and revenue streams for years to come. Filled with real-world case studies and expert insights on the latest opportunities and trends, such as the COVID-19 pandemic’s role in accelerating the adoption of blockchain, this must-have resource: Shows how blockchain and distributed ledger technology are disrupting the financial industry Explains what security tokens are and why they are the next major breakthrough for investing Highlights how blockchain technology has created new and more efficient ways of fund raising and investing Identifies the ways companies like IBM, Fidelity Investments, and AXA are deploying blockchain and tokenized solutions Describes how assets only available to institutional investors could become marketed to the mainstream Discusses the impact that security tokens will have on real assets such as stocks, real estate, bonds, and derivatives Provides insight into how central banks around the world are embracing blockchain and beginning to issue digital currencies Digital Finance: Security Tokens and Unlocking the Real Potential of Blockchain is essential reading for financial professionals, general investors, finance and technology students, regulators, legal professionals, and users of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

Handbook of Blockchain, Digital Finance, and Inclusion, Volume 1: Cryptocurrency, FinTech, InsurTech, and Regulation explores recent advances in digital banking and cryptocurrency, emphasizing mobile technology and evolving uses of cryptocurrencies as financial assets. Contributors go beyond summaries of standard models to describe new banking business models that will be sustainable and will likely dictate the future of finance. The volume not only emphasizes the financial opportunities made possible by digital banking, such as financial inclusion and impact investing, but it also looks at engineering theories and developments that encourage innovation. Its ability to illuminate present potential and future possibilities make it a unique contribution to the literature. Explores recent advances in digital banking and cryptocurrency, emphasizing mobile technology and evolving uses of cryptocurrencies as financial assets Explains the practical consequences of both technologies and economics to readers who want to learn about subjects related to their specialties Encompasses alternative finance, financial inclusion, impact investing, decentralized consensus ledger and applied cryptography Provides the only advanced methodical summary of these subjects available today

Global finance is in the middle of a radical transformation fueled by innovative financial technologies. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the digitization of retail financial services in Europe. Institutional interest and digital asset markets are also growing blurring the boundaries between the token economy and traditional finance. Blockchain, AI, quantum computing and decentralised finance (DeFI) are setting the stage for a global battle of business models and philosophies. The post-Brexit EU cannot afford to ignore the promise of digital finance. But the Union is struggling to keep pace with global innovation hubs, particularly when it comes to experimenting with new digital forms of capital raising. Calibrating the EU digital finance strategy is a balancing act that requires a deep understanding of the factors driving the transformation, be they legal, cultural, political or economic, as well as their many implications. The same FinTech inventions that use AI, machine learning and big data to facilitate access to credit may also establish invisible barriers that further social, racial and religious exclusion. The way digital finance actors source, use, and record information presents countless consumer protection concerns. The EU’s strategic response has been years in the making and, finally, in September 2020 the Commission released a Digital Finance Package. This special issue collects contributions from leading scholars who scrutinize the challenges digital finance presents for the EU internal market and financial market regulation from multiple public policy perspectives. Author contributions adopt a critical yet constructive and solutions-oriented approach. They aim to provide policy-relevant research and ideas shedding light on the complexities of the digital finance promise. They also offer solid proposals for reform of EU financial services law.

Handbook of Blockchain, Digital Finance, and Inclusion, Volume 2: ChinaTech, Mobile Security, and Distributed Ledger emphasizes technological developments that introduce the future of finance. Descriptions of recent innovations lay the foundations for explorations of feasible solutions for banks and startups to grow. The combination of studies on blockchain technologies and applications, regional financial inclusion movements, advances in Chinese finance, and security issues delivers a grand perspective on both changing industries and lifestyles. Written for students and practitioners, it helps lead the way to future possibilities. Explains the practical consequences of both technologies and economics to readers who want to learn about subjects related to their specialties Encompasses alternative finance, financial inclusion, impact investing, decentralized consensus ledger and applied cryptography Provides the only advanced methodical summary of these subjects available today

Focusing on Kenya’s path-breaking mobile money project M-Pesa, this book examines and critiques the narratives and institutions of digital financial inclusion as a development strategy for gender equality, arguing for a politics of redistribution to guide future digital financial inclusion projects. One of the most-discussed digital financial inclusion projects, M-Pesa facilitates the transfer of money and access to formal financial services via the mobile phone infrastructure and has grown at a phenomenal rate since its launch in 2007 to reach about 80 per cent of the Kenyan population. Through a socio-legal enquiry drawing on feminist political economy, law and development scholarship and postcolonial feminist debate, this book unravels the narratives and institutional arrangements that frame M-Pesa’s success while interrogating the relationship between digital financial inclusion and gender equality in development discourse. Natile argues that M-Pesa is premised on and regulated according to a logic of opportunity rather than a politics of redistribution, favouring the expansion of the mobile money market in preference to contributing to substantive gender equality via a redistribution of the revenue and funding deriving from its development. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and students in Global Political Economy, Socio-Legal Studies, Gender Studies, Law & Development, Finance and International Relations.

In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.