Everything about blockchain

Decentralized identities as enablers in open banking

The digital transformation has profoundly changed the way banking services are used. Banking advice is no longer limited to visiting a branch – customers now expect a seamless, cross-channel experience when accessing banking products. Decentralized identities, also known as Self-Sovereign Identities (SSI), could play a crucial role in this and further change the relationship between banks and their customers. In this article, we will take a closer look at the most important aspects, challenges and opportunities of this development.

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AI cases in banking – AI radar of the Business Engineering Institute St.Gallen

The financial industry is beginning to undergo a profound transformation through the use of AI. In particular, the use of generative AI opens up the possibility of creating new content such as texts, images, videos or music. In autumn 2024, we started building an AI radar that systematically analyzes use cases of banks in German-speaking countries. This blog post offers an overview of use cases and maturity levels in the banking sector and provides exciting insights into the status quo.

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Web3 and the future of the Internet: opportunities and challenges for the financial world (Part II)

Where we looked at blockchain technology as the foundation of Web3 in the first part of this series of articles, in this blog post Roger Heines looks at other important elements of the Web3 concept such as the token economy, DApps, DeFi and SSI as well as the opportunities and challenges of Web3 for the financial services industry.

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Web3 and the future of the Internet: opportunities and challenges for the financial world (Part I)

The internet has developed rapidly since its creation in the 1960s. From the purely static Web 1.0 to the dynamic Web 2.0 to the emerging decentralized Web3. But what exactly does Web3 mean and what role does this next stage in the evolution of the Internet play? For the financial sector, this could have far-reaching implications and at the same time offer immense opportunities. This blog post describes the evolution of the internet and the technology behind Web3.

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Retrospective of the 11th member event of the OpenBankingProject.ch

On November 13, the members of the OpenBankingProject.ch met for the eleventh time to discuss current developments in the field of open banking in Switzerland and to take a look into the future together. The event offered exciting insights into the latest advances and chal-lenges in the sector. In this blog post, the most important highlights and insights of the day are described.

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Five Cloud Myths about Core Banking Systems (Article 2)

In collaboration with Swisscom, a series of articles has been created to answer the typical cloud myths in a banking context. We will try to explain these together with three articles and give you simple and common cloud wordings to help you understand the cloud.

In today’s article, we will clarify Myth 1 and Myth 2:

Myth 1: The cloud always saves money

Myth 2: The cloud makes it easy for cybercriminals

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Five Cloud Myths about Core Banking Systems (Article 1)

In collaboration with Swisscom, we have created a series of articles to address the typical cloud myths in the banking context. We try to explain these together with three articles and give you simple and common cloud wordings to help you understand the cloud.

In today’s article, we clarify the current market trend and the different cloud models that are available.

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Large Language Models and RAG

The special feature of LLMs: they can be asked questions using natural language and also respond using natural language. The knowledge required for this was stored in the parameters of the LLM during extensive training with huge amounts of data (“parametric memory”). The sometimes inadequate quality of the answers, especially in specific domains, can be improved on the basis of “in context learning” approaches using prompt engineering methods or the more complex fine-tuning of the LLM. This is one of two dimensions of improvement options: changing the capabilities of the LLM and/or the quality of the context provided.
The last article in this series on generative artificial intelligence highlighted the characteristics and weaknesses of LLMs as well as approaches for possible improvements. So far, another dimension of LLM improvement has not been discussed in more detail: contextual enhancement by means of a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) process, which enables the LLM to use external knowledge to provide up-to-date and subject-specific answers. In this blog post, Wilhelm Niehoff presents the RAG method and current development approaches.

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Fan Tokens on the Blockchain: A Research Insight

Fan tokens have established themselves as an innovative digital asset class that forms an interface between cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology and the sports sector. They enable a new form of fan participation and offer exclusive benefits such as co-determination rights in club decisions and access to special rewards and games. These blockchain-based assets, which have already been issued by 81 sports organizations – including prestigious clubs such as FC Barcelona and Manchester City – have found their way into various sports such as combat sports, motorsports, tennis and rugby and offer far more than just speculative value . This blog post describes the concept of fan tokens and how they impact fan engagement.

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Understanding Bitcoin as a productive asset: Part 2 

A Bitcoin-based financial system will necessarily be built in layers. This is because today’s financial system is also multi-layered and recognizes an inherent hierarchy of money-like assets. To properly assess the potential of Bitcoin as a productive asset, it is essential to understand the trade-offs that come with it. In the first part of this two-part blog post, Bitcoin was introduced as a novel monetary asset and the necessity for productive yield generation was discussed so that Bitcoin can take the next step in its evolutionary phase. In the second part, three perspectives on Bitcoin yield products will be evaluated concerning their trustworthiness and the associated risks and trade-offs. Based on these insights, the gold standard of a Bitcoin yield product will be defined and what can be concluded from this for banks and their customers will be explained.

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Workshop series “digital customer proximity”

OpenBankingProject.ch is currently organising a series of workshops on the topic of “digital customer proximity”. Around 40 participants from 30 companies from the financial sector and beyond are examining various target images and use cases on how banks can use concepts such as open banking or embedded finance to position themselves closer to their customers. The aim is to support end customers with digital service access outside of banking and to assist them with banking data, products or services. In this blog post, Stefan Knaus presents the workshop series, the results of the first events to date and the content planned for the future.

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What is Bitcoin’s next evolutionary step after the introduction of the Bitcoin ETF – and what do banks need to bear in mind?

Since the launch of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the US in January 2024, Bitcoin has become accessible as an asset to a broad institutional investor base. This marked a significant milestone on its journey as a monetary asset. The next major step in Bitcoin’s development as an investable asset is to unlock yield generation opportunities (similar to dividends on stocks or coupons on bonds). The first part of this two-part blog post introduces Bitcoin as a new type of monetary asset and the need for productive use of Bitcoin and analyses how initial approaches in this area led to the 2022 crypto credit crisis.

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Large Language Models: Origin-Use-Further Development

Large language models (LLMs) have made a quantum leap in the field of natural language processing (NLP) over the last five years, both in terms of understanding (natural language understanding, NLU) and generation (natural language generation, NLG) in the development of communication with computers. With ChatGPT, the general public has also become aware of this. The possible uses in companies are beginning to become more and more relevant. A small series of articles will describe the emergence, integration possibilities in processes and effects of LLMs. In this article, the history of the development of LLMs up to their current status will be outlined, with the aim of presenting strengths, weaknesses and manifestations in the next article on this basis.

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Service Design in Business Ecosystems: How you can use the service blueprint in the context of business ecosystems and the relation to my research.

As part of his research at the Competence Center Ecosystems, Dennis Vetterling is developing artefacts for the conceptualization of value capture for organizations in business ecosystems. The objective is to provide managers with the basis for in-formed decisions in the context of value capture in business ecosystems. In this blog post, he introduces the service blueprint as a modeling framework for handling the topic of business ecosystems in his research and provides further thought fragments for their analysis.

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Positioning opportunities for banks in the context of digital assets    – A market observation

At the beginning of January 2024, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) in New York approved the first Bitcoin spot ETFs for trading and distribution in the USA. The approval of ETFs in the US further contributes to the availability of digital assets on the broader investor market. Financial institutions can therefore increasingly assume that the demand for digital assets will change. How have banks in Switzerland positioned themselves in the context of digital assets and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each positioning? Based on observations and interactions in the Swiss market, these are categorized in this blog post.

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Are our jobs at risk?

The first part of this blog series described different ways in which AI can affect individual professions. To analyze the impact of AI on the Swiss economic sector, a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative study on the exposure of individual professions to AI was conducted using a task-based view. The second part of this article series summarizes the results of this study and presents implications for policy and management.

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Are Our Jobs at Risk?

As a result of recent developments in the field of AI, the impact of automation on the labor market has begun to be reassessed. Non-routine cognitive or manual jobs, long considered unaffected by previous technologies, are increasingly under threat from self-learning algorithms, leading many economists to argue that this time the impact on the labor market is fundamentally different from other technologies. This blog post describes different ways in which AI can influence the tasks of a profession.

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Research Area Business Ecosystems

As part of his research in the field of business ecosystems, Dennis Vetterling repeat-edly comes into contact with organizations that use the concept of ecosystems for their own purposes. In his work, two perspectives on ecosystems have emerged: a “company-centric” and a “customer-centric” perspective. In this article, Dennis Vetter-ling gives an insight into these two perspectives and an indication of how organiza-tions can use a combination of both in the context of a strategic analysis.

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The Capability Compass

Digital transformation presents organizations with the challenge of developing an adaptive culture and harmonizing traditional business practices with digital offerings, whereby a comprehensive willingness to change and learn as well as a holistic approach to corporate management are crucial for an efficient transformation.
The following blog post presents a possible approach to analyzing a holistic transformation. The Capability Compass.

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Strategic Role Profiles in the Context of Open Banking for Swiss Banks

In the context of Open Banking, four different role profiles can be distinguished that banks can assume: Individualist, Producer, Distributor and Platform. The role profiles are differentiated with regard to the distribution and creation of services and allow banks to put together a tailored, new business model in the individual banking areas. In the second part of this three-part blog post series, the individual role profiles will be described in detail and their impact on a bank’s business model will be illustrated.

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Study results analyzing the needs of Swiss individuals for trusted data spaces 

To harness the potential of data to better target societal and economic needs and foster innovation, the Swiss federal administration is promoting the development and operation of trusted data spaces for its citizens. In order to identify the needs of the individuals of Switzerland in terms of data spaces and thus to involve the population in the process of developing trusted data spaces, the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen has developed a study in collaboration with the University of Lausanne. The following is a brief summary of the results of the study.

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Implications of Open Banking for the Business Model of Banks 

In order to implement Open Banking, the European Union has been pursuing a regulatory-driven approach with PSD2 since 2018. In contrast, Switzerland is currently one of the few countries like the United States, Argentina, South Africa, and China to pursue a market-driven approach. However, last December, the Swiss Federal Council addressed Swiss financial institutions with a clear message and wants to accelerate developments around Open Banking. The first part of this three-part blog post series presents the impact of Open Banking on the business model of Swiss universal banks.

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This was the Open Banking Summit 2023

After the successful Summit 2022, the doors opened again on August 24th at Google in Zurich for this year’s Open Banking Summit 2023. With over 100 participants and top-class speakers, the OpenBankingProject once again proved to be one of the enterprise networks in the context of Open Banking. This blog post summarizes the content of the Open Banking Summit 2023.

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