Scott Hamilton - Community Author: Finextra Research

How Robinhood’s new and improved banking offering is a wake-up call to the industry

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

How Robinhood’s new and improved banking offering is a wake-up call to the industry

Is it an investment, a deposit, a delivery service, a game, or a gamble? Or perhaps, all of the above? Questions like these are being asked more frequently by savvy consumers - and in some cases business leaders and competitors - about the plethora of new hybrid financial services providers and their increasingly ‘mixed’ portfolios of spending, sav...

11 April 2025 /wealth

When dubious reviews help fuel short seller attacks on a fintech, where to look for the truth?

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

When dubious reviews help fuel short seller attacks on a fintech, where to look for the truth?

Why would anyone really trust online ratings and reviews anymore? We’ve all learned that often anonymous blog, forum, and social media comments can be fraught with misinformation, or even outright lies, and in some cases have recently contributed to fraudulent or money losing relationships in the banking world. I’m going to leave that question op...

07 April 2025 /payments

How FIs and fintechs will use AI, fresh funding, and partnerships to grow in 2025

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

How FIs and fintechs will use AI, fresh funding, and partnerships to grow in 2025

Finextra reviewed recent financial institution surveys and expert industry commentaries to zero in on the current and near-future realities of AI in banking and fintech circles. Is generative AI technology proving its promoters’ promises or fulfilling its heavily hyped potential in the financial services world? We also wanted to explore experts’ a...

18 March 2025 /ai

Where do experts agree in key fintech and banking predictions for 2025?

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

Where do experts agree in key fintech and banking predictions for 2025?

Lots of industry surveys and well-informed speculation are popping up across the financial services world these days. We’ve provided some of our own expert insights into banking and fintech trends in recent Finextra Predict 2025 articles, impact studies, and webinars. Given the general uncertainty surrounding numerous areas of the US and global ...

14 March 2025 /predictions

How much is too much – or too little - regulation? Banks and their depositors may soon find out

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

How much is too much – or too little - regulation? Banks and their depositors may soon find out

In a new report published on 27 February, NPR shared a warning that the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)’s proposed dismantling at the behest of the Trump administration could be particularly perilous for the US banking system and its customers. NPR noted the rapid job-cutting actions and attacks from the White House and its allies ...

04 March 2025 /regulation

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

What’s happening to the US CFPB?

What’s in store for America’s consumer financial services watchdog agency – the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)? Nobody really knows. But many open banking and data protection and control advocates are saying: “please don’t lose sight of the benefits of personal financial data rights,” amid the heated debate over its sponsoring agency’...

17 February 2025 /regulation

How did committing online fraud, then bragging about it, become okay?

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

How did committing online fraud, then bragging about it, become okay?

There are many that would welcome the opportunity to weigh in on one particularly ‘trending’ question getting lots of attention right now: Why did it become appropriate to steal and brag about it? Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, have expressed more willingness than any other generation to commit online fraud. Opinions among those studying...

12 February 2025 /crime

Where’s the first stop for financial trust? Our guts!

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

Where’s the first stop for financial trust? Our guts!

As we outlined in a previous Finextra story, financial services ‘schemers’ and ‘scammers’ can come in many different shades. Indeed, victims of online fraud and illegal schemes lose money every day to not just criminals and nefarious enterprises, but also to supposedly ‘above-board,’ legitimate products and their purveyors. To help avoid non-crim...

06 February 2025 /security

How to avoid online scams and hype: Is reading the ‘fine print’ enough anymore?

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

How to avoid online scams and hype: Is reading the ‘fine print’ enough anymore?

Why do people keep losing money from schemes, scams, and ‘too good to be true’ offers in what is probably one of - if not the most - heavily regulated sectors of the economy? 2024 saw a continuing increase in fraudulent scams and a parade of disappointing (or damaging) online product offerings, including in the financial services marketplace. As...

23 January 2025 /security

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

Should the FDIC be eliminated?

Do Americans really want to eliminate the agency that has protected their bank deposits (to a point) from sudden, unexpected losses due to their financial institution’s failure – and done so since the Great Depression? We’re about to find out, if stories circulating recently through Wall Street and Washington, DC are true. According to many major ...

23 December 2024 /retail

What is agentic AI, and why should banks or customers care?

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

What is agentic AI, and why should banks or customers care?

You’ll soon be hearing a lot about agentic AI, if you haven’t already. The World Economic Forum defines and explains agentic AI and its impact in a recent article on the topic, noting how this discipline/approach/tool “will transform” the financial services industry. “Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) goes beyond generative AI (GenAI) by enabli...

16 December 2024 /ai

How retail giants like Starbucks and Staples are handling cash

Scott Hamilton Contributing Editor at Finextra Research

How retail giants like Starbucks and Staples are handling cash

Despite the steady growth of debit or credit card transactions to a high percentage of their daily totals, retailers still must manage cash deliveries and collections for the remainder, other than the small number of items paid for via cheque or purchase order. That’s what a recent panel of three treasury leaders from leading retailers talked abou...

12 December 2024 /retail

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