Stoops, who has been at Kentucky since 2013, signed a mammoth contract extension in November that effectively gave him a 33% raise, bumping his pay up to $9 million annually. Calipari, who is the ...

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A deep dive into the journey of cross-border payments specialist Nium, and how it became a rare fintech unicorn in Singapore.

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The Mercer County Technical Education Center (MCTEC) has maintained their CODA accreditation for the 15th year in a row. Program Director and Dental Assisting Instructor Angie Barilla is proud that her and the community’s hard work as paid off once again.

MCTEC maintains CODA accreditation

A British payments start-up which is muscling in on the turf occupied by bigger rivals such as SumUp has secured £6m in backing from a host of prominent venture capitalists. Sky News understands ...

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As the nation reeled from covid-19, the federal government sent many Americans a financial lifeline. But some recipients say the covid relief payments have triggered financial distress by jeopardizing their Social Security benefits. The government has ...

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Covid relief payments triggered feds to demand money back from Social Security recipients

Get the most recent info and news about Coda Payments on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

We take life’s digital experiences over the top by enabling users to bring more creativity and self-expression to their play - no matter who or where they are. Founded in 2011, Coda Payments (“Coda”) is the leading provider of secure, cross-border monetisation solutions for digital products and services in more than 60 markets. Through our three services: Codashop, xShop, and Codapay, we help a range of top digital content publishers worldwide, such as Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty: Mobile, Diablo Immortal), Riot Games (VALORANT, League of Legends: Wild Rift), Moonton (Mobile Legends: Bang Bang), Garena (Free Fire), Tencent (PUBG Mobile), beIN, Bigo Live, Tinder, and Viu to monetise their content and unlock new revenue streams. Today, Coda has more than 500 people in 35+ countries who are working towards the same mission: to offer our customers the best value, experience and entertainment every day, without fail. If you want to make an impact in taking life’s digital experiences over the top, join us! - We are valued at $2.5 billion and backed by Smash Capital, Insight Partners, GIC, Apis Partners and GMO Global Payment Fund (affiliated with Japan’s largest online payment gateway). - In 2022, we are named the 5th fastest growing fintech company in the APAC by the Financial Times, the 13th fastest growing company in Singapore by the Straits Times, and a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. - Our headquarters are in Singapore, with 11+ offices worldwide and 35+ remote locations, including South Korea, Egypt and France. We are an equal opportunity employer that is committed to cultivating an inclusive environment for all employees, and we welcome the diversity that you will bring!

Coda Payments

98 Stories To Learn About No Code

Trade it Like it is HOT: A Review of Popular ZK Projects and the Zero-Knowledge Proof Technology

Opérelo como si estuviera CALIENTE: una revisión de los proyectos ZK populares y la tecnología de prueba de conocimiento cero

Échangez-le comme s'il faisait chaud : un examen des projets ZK populaires et de la technologie Zero-Knowledge Proof

ट्रेड इट लाइक इट इज़ हॉट: ए रिव्यू ऑफ़ पॉपुलर ZK प्रोजेक्ट्स एंड द जीरो-नॉलेज प्रूफ टेक्नोलॉजी

熱く取引しよう: 人気の ZK プロジェクトとゼロ知識証明技術のレビュー

Negocie como se estivesse quente: uma revisão dos projetos ZK populares e da tecnologia à prova de conhecimento zero

Giao dịch nó Thích nó đang HOT: Đánh giá về các dự án ZK phổ biến và công nghệ chứng minh không có tri thức

像热一样交易：流行的 ZK 项目和零知识证明技术回顾

Understanding Low-Code Programming with Michael Bargury Michael Bargury spent years working on cloud security at Microsoft, bootstrapping security products that tackle emerging threats like IoT, APIs and IaC. : Vested Interest Disclosure The author's an independent contributor, and while HackerNoon has reviewed the story for quality, the claims hereon belong to the author. #DYOR Interview with Michael Bargury, CTO at Zenity Ishan Pandey: Hi Michael, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind ? Zenity Hi Ishan, thank you for inviting me. I was always drawn to domains where there were not a lot of certainties but a lot to discover. I spent several years focused on cloud security at Microsoft, bootstrapping security products that tackle emerging threats like IoT, APIs and IaC. My role was to always be on the lookout for the next big thing. Microsoft was betting hard on Power Platform and was eating its own dog food at that time. Michael Bargury: We had a few hundred thousand apps (!!) developed through Microsoft by IT and business units, and I was tapped as part of the team tasked to figure out how we tackle this security challenge. We tried a few different things and were in development when COVID hit and the effort got cancelled. In parallel, I was eager to go out on my own journey and was looking for a BIG problem to tackle and a strong partner I could do this with. Ben Kliger and I worked together throughout our time at Microsoft, and always knew we’d love to do something together someday. Ben has taken a pivotal role in growing Azure cloud security offering. Once we connected and decided to go on this journey together, we talked to a few dozen enterprise, Fortune 500 included, tech C-levels and figured out that low-code/no-code security is a widely overlooked area in our industry and that companies are struggling right now and this will only continue to grow. It was clear that we were going to spend our next years tackling this problem. Ishan Pandey: Please tell us a little bit about the Zenity platform? Michael Bargury: Low-Code/No-Code is a great enabler. The really cool thing about it is that it lowers the bar to be a digital creator. So business units within the enterprise can address their own needs without waiting for IT. However, IT is there for a reason. Apps need to be secure, compliant, maintain customer privacy, and be resilient and supported. So much of our security frameworks depend on the security savviness of developers. Can we ask the same from business users? Enterprise IT and security teams today are finding themselves between a rock and a hard place. They either maintain security by blocking low-code/no-code innovation or enabling productivity but losing all visibility and control. Zenity is all about letting organizations have both. It provides cross-platform visibility, risk assessment, monitoring and governance, so the enterprise can fully adopt low-code/no-code without compromising security. Security and IT teams can set guardrails, respond to threats and monitor citizen developers as they innovate. Ishan Pandey: Because low-code and no-code platforms enable even those without a development background to swiftly construct apps, they can also contribute to a rise in shadow IT. What are your thoughts on this rising issue within such platforms? First, I want to acknowledge that this is a real issue we’re seeing customers face today. It’s not just dedicated low-code/no-code platforms like Zapier or IFTTT. It seems like every SaaS vendor today is becoming a development platform. Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft, Workday, Slack and other companies are embedding their services with low-code/no-code platforms, which go directly into the heart of the enterprise. That means that enterprises have no way to “stop” citizen development, and they must face this new reality. Michael Bargury: However, the advent of low-code/no-coda platforms should be considered a blessing for security teams, not a curse. For many years now, the industry has been trying to tackle the shadow-IT problem, or its old uncle, the DLP problem, with no real success. It’s challenging to figure out how data moves when users are using “copy-and-paste integration”. But when users are encouraged to automate data movement through low-code/no-code, suddenly there’s a repository of data movers security teams can look at! By analyzing these apps security teams can get unprecedented visibility and control over how data moves in the enterprise. And so, with the right guardrails and analysis engines in place, security should drive their organization to use low-code/no-code. Ishan Pandey: What are the major security concerns pertaining to low-code and no-code applications? The number one issue security teams are worried about is identity misuse. Low-code/no-code platforms make it extremely easy for makers to embed their identity into an application. Everyone who uses it does so while impersonating the maker. This one fact makes every existing security solution obsolete, from network controls to pro-code application security tools. None of them can figure out what’s going on because, as far as they can see, the maker is doing all the action, and the app doesn’t even exist. Michael Bargury: Another issue is about data flow and control. You are always a click away from connecting your personal account and using it for business purposes, either intentionally or by mistake. In enterprise settings, we often find automation put in place to , usually because people prefer to read their professional emails together with their personal ones. The sprawl of micro-applications produced by low-code/no-code becomes impossible to manage, with hordes of applications touching, changing and moving data around unchecked. sync business and personal accounts Insecure authentication is another pressing concern. By their nature, low-code/no-code applications are about connectivity. Since makers are the ones creating those connections, they find themselves having to configure settings like SSH fingerprint, FTP encryption, and other non-trivial security settings. Mistakes are very often lead to enterprise data or identity sent over an insecure channel. We are leading a new that is focused on the top security concerns for low-code/no-code security, together with strong experts throughout the industry. OWASP group Ishan Pandey: LC/NC software development methodologies can support a wide range of application types. Can you please explain to our readers what some major application types supported by such LC/NC softwares are? Low-Code/no-code is being used by IT and business users to power what used to be the sole responsibility of Business Application and Integration teams. , with some taking it further and building customer-facing applications with low-code. Let me share a couple of examples. Michael Bargury: Enterprises are building business-critical applications with low-code/no-code One typical use case is around streamlining business processes. In one organization, the HR team was launching a new Give-Away program where employees could pledge a donation and participate in a ruffle. HR employees created an application that allowed employees to log in with their corporate identities, choose donations, and facilitate payment to streamline this process. This kind of app is very typical, where business units facilitate and automate business processes through a dedicated app. Note that the app is handling payments, which entails critical security and compliance risks. In this particular organization, the app was developed without participation or review from IT, which created financial risk. Another common use case is automation. If-this-then-that rules that help stitch together different systems to avoid manual work. Slack automates its entire order-to-cash process using low-code automation. Through contract approvals, facilitation of payment and auditing through Salesforce. Of course, this process is as critical as it gets. Making sure customer payments are smooth and can be tracked throughout their lifecycle is crucial, and automating it all shows great talent and a double-down on low-code by Slack. famously Ishan Pandey: While there are a few challenges with low-code/no-code platforms, kindly elaborate on the major benefits of such platforms? In a typical enterprise, business users are always fighting for their needs to get fulfilled by IT. With the shortage of developers worldwide and the need to move faster than ever, businesses are just stuck and left looking for solutions. Low-code/no-code places the power right in the hands of the people who can bring the most benefit to the business, the business users. Rather than getting management buy-in, specifying requirements with PMs, waiting for prioritization, and working with another department across the org, business users can now focus on getting the job done. They know best what the business needs, and low-code/no-code gives them the tools to act on that knowledge quickly and independently. Michael Bargury: Ishan Pandey: What does the roadmap ahead look like for Zenity and the LC/NC ecosystem as a whole? Zenity is focused on helping enterprises accelerate the adoption of low-code/no-code without compromising security. We are an enterprise-first company, which means that we comply with the highest security and compliance standards and also play nicely with the enterprise ecosystem. In the upcoming months, Zenity is focused on advanced governance features that will allow admins to trigger immediate actions when applications are found non-compliant. We are also working on getting direct security insight right to the business users, guiding them through the process of building secure and compliant apps. Michael Bargury: Don’t forget to share and like the story!

Low Code Programming: Understanding the Future of Software Development with Zenity 

There are so many no-code tools to make the work of developers easier. Anyone can build some useful products, startups without writing even a single line of code. In this article, we will see that is going to help you In 2022. 40+ No Code/Low Code Tools And Resources For Developers What exactly is no-code? Programming without code is a concise definition. It is the use of no-code tools that allow you to create a fully functional, responsive web application or website without writing any code. However, it goes a little deeper than that. Every piece of technology, including no-code platforms, is developed with code. The distinction is that no-code platforms provide building elements that are required by any website or application, such as pages, data storage and display, individual user profiles, and file upload. People may then link them into their own program using drag and drop or other "human-understood" actions that do not require coding. 1. Zapier For folks who are always on the go, automation is a great way to save time. Zapier automates the transfer of data across your online apps, allowing you to focus on your most critical tasks. 2. FONT FLIPPER You can preview 500+ google fonts on top of your designs using this website. 3. Figma Figma integrates everyone involved in the design process, allowing teams to produce better products in less time. You can create beautiful designs for your work. The “always online” nature of Figma actually provides some of the greatest strengths of the tool. One of those strengths is that Figma allows for live, real-time collaboration. Free + Paid 4. Previewed Previewed helps to create smart mockups by just dragging and dropping in the browser. You can create device shots and animated clips. 5. NoCodeAPI NoCodeAPI helps you to set up your Google Sheets, Airtable, Google Analytics, Twitter, Telegram, Open Graph API, MailChimp, and 50+ other apps without a backend to save time and money. 6. Spline Spline helps you to create beautiful 3D designs to use for your projects and websites. 7. removebg You can remove the background of any image without a click. There are a lot of beautiful backgrounds to choose from. 8. Coolors The lightning-quick colour scheme generator! Create your ideal colour scheme or get inspired by thousands of stunning colour schemes. 9. Webflow Webflow lets you create your own website without writing any code. More than 3,500,000 designers and teams use Webflow to build, collaborate on, and develop amazing websites on a totally visual canvas – no code required. It is a visual interface builder for digital interfaces. It essentially enables you to position and design parts of any digital interface. 10. SEO Site Checkup SEO Site Checkup performs a quick audit of your website, checking for proper tags and highlighting any errors that may arise. Analyze your SEO concerns in real-time. You can analyze and act on SEO reports. 11. Typeform Make forms, surveys, and quizzes that people want to fill out. You can create integrations with various apps to enjoy your time-saving workflow. Free + Paid 12. Mockuuups Studio Your search for the ideal mockups has come to an end. Designers and marketers can drag and drop graphics into 1200+ mockups in seconds. 13. extension.dev extension.dev is a low-code platform for building and deploying browser extensions that help you grow your business. Use their library of sample extensions and templates to get started right away, or start from scratch. Free 14. flaticon Download free icons and stickers for your projects. Resources made by and for designers. PNG, SVG, EPS, PSD and BASE 64 formats. Access 6M+ vector icons & stickers. 15. freepik Find tons of graphic resources including Free Vectors, Stock Photos and PSD. 16. landin'page.fyi Build your best landing page with hand-picked examples and tools. A curated library of landing page resources. You'll have a up-to-date landing pages in no time. 17. Framer Create stunning interactive designs from start to finish all on the canvas. Design realistic websites and apps in minutes with pre-made interactive components, polished assets, layout tools, and more. 18. Tails Tails is the ultimate drag'n drop page creator built for TailwindCSS. Over 220+ components to help you look pretty for your customers. Free + Paid 19. Panelbear Panelbear helps you to measure your website's most important metrics, so you can deliver a great end user experience. 20. copy.ai With CopyAI’s automated creativity tools,
you can generate marketing copy in seconds. 21. PORY Create your app the way you like using drag and drop blocks. Connect your data from all your favourite apps. Control what users can view, create and modify with user groups. 22. Shoutout Increase your consumer base by emphasising why people trust you. Shoutout makes it simple to take your current social proof and transform it into a lovely "Wall of Love." In less than 3 minutes, you can capture, curate, and publish a wall. 23. Coda Coda comes with building blocks—like tables and buttons—and time-saving templates, so your doc can grow and evolve with the needs of your team. No more ping-ponging between documents, spreadsheets, and niche workflow apps to get things done. Coda brings all of your words and data into one flexible surface. 24. BuildFire The Most Powerful App Maker For iOS & Android. BuildFire’s powerful and easy to use mobile app builder makes it so you can create mobile apps for iOS & Android in a fraction of the time and cost. 25. bubble The best way to build web apps without code. Bubble is the most powerful no-code platform, empowering entrepreneurs to build production-ready web apps. 26. PAGELY Build beautiful websites In light speed. No coding required.
Launch websites from Notion, Google Sheets, GitHub or Airtable. 27. BUILDBOX Create 2D and 3D game without any coding. Try this awesome low code game development platform. Build any game from scratch or use templates. 28. Wicked Templates Find HTML landing page templates here. You can get Free and Premium themes, UI Kit's, templates and landing pages built with Tailwind CSS, HTML & Next.js. 29. Airtable Airtable is a modern spreadsheet tool with database functionalities. It's straightforward and user-friendly, allowing anyone to rapidly establish a database. It's one of the numerous no-code tools that's gaining popularity. 30. Splitbee The analytics platform helps you to track and optimize your online business. Follow incoming traffic in real-time. Uncover where users come from and what pages they visit. Dive deep into your ad campaigns and see what converts best. 31. Voiceflow Voiceflow is a conversation design tool that allows teams to create, develop, and launch voice and chat assistants. Voiceflow makes it simple to create contextual discussions. Leverage reusable components, robust context models, interaction model exports, and more all inside our fast & beautiful drag-n-drop canvas. 32. Notion Notion is one of the most popular productivity apps right now, with over a million users. It continues to expand every day, owing to the adaptability of Notion's robust databases, user-friendly pages, and performance enhancements. You can also create webpages using notion. 33. Taskade If you want Notion, Zoom, and Slack in one place then you definitely have to use this. Map out your workflow, from ideas to action. Collaborate on projects and manage tasks. 34. Glide Create powerful apps and websites, without code. Using basic spreadsheet skills, you can make incredible things with Glide. Pick a spreadsheet and Glide instantly generates a real, working app or website to get you started. 35. Bumpa Manage your business from your phone. Everything you need to sell online, offline and on social media. Track orders. Engage customers. Receive payments. Free Website. 36. MagicPattern Beautiful graphics with a total of ten tools. Effortlessly and instantly! In just a few clicks, you can create distinctive visuals for social media posts, landing sites, and branding. Then you may save them as photos or even code (SVG & CSS). Create an infinite number of high-quality backdrop graphics for your customers and products. 37. Shopify Shopify is an e-commerce platform that enables anybody to open an online store and sell their goods. With Shopify POS, merchants can also sell their items in person. Without any programming skills, you can set up a Shopify store and get it up and operating in no time. Themes are installed with a click of a button, and customising them (depending on the theme and its accessible parameters) is as simple as filling out an online form. 38. Graphite Responsive, Pixel-Perfect, Code-Free. Make site design feel like a comfortable environment. Create pixel-perfect Web Pages, not just mockups, with familiar visual editing tools. Concentrate on the creative aspect, and forget the rest. 39. Testimonial Easily get video testimonials from your customers. It is difficult it is to get video testimonials. As a result, Testimonial is there for you. You don't require a developer or website hosting to collect video testimonials from your consumers in minutes. 40. Carrd Carrd is a site-building platform similar to SquareSpace or WordPress that has grown in popularity over the last year. Carrd distinguishes itself from other websites by specializing in one-page websites. Almost all of its capabilities are free to use, and it has a wide range of applications. 41. IFTTT IFTTT is short for If This Then That, and is the best way to integrate apps, devices, and services. IFTTT makes it possible for devices, services, and apps to interact in new and powerful ways. IFTTT was based on the idea that everything works better when it's done jointly. For anybody wanting to design a smart home or automate their life, tech incompatibility has become a challenge. It's simple with IFTTT. 42. Nocode Video Explore top Nocode Videos from around the web and learn about new tech. Find tutorials related to Nocode. 43. MemberSpace With just a few clicks, you can make any section of your website members-only. Simply restrict access to any page of your website, then decide how much visitors will pay to get access. Create memberships for whatever you desire, including courses, video lessons, member directories, and more, all while maintaining complete control over the design. 44. NoCodery Nocodery is a job board for nocoders, created by nocoders for nocoders. Nocodery collects nocode job offers and jobs from a variety of sources so you don't have to search for them manually on job boards, saving you time! 45. Codeless.how Codeless is a website offering information for anyone who runs an internet business and wishes to automate routine operations without writing code. You'll learn how to use technologies like Zapier, Webflow, and Airtable to automate marketing, sales, billing, and other activities. 46. Softr Softr is a fantastic online development tool that allows users to create code-free websites, portals, and web apps in only ten minutes on Airtable. Using Zapier, You may integrate application logic with external services or interconnect multiple sites. People have been able to use computers without ever writing a line of code for decades. With the proliferation of no-code technologies, a comparable revolution is taking place for those who wish to write software. While the no-code revolution is still in its early stages, the business is expected to be worth more than $43 billion by 2023. The current boom, on the other hand, is the consequence of decades of hard labour and progress that cannot be overlooked. If You ❤️ My Content! Connect Me on Twitter First published here

Build Something Great in 2022 with these 40+ NoCode/LowCode Tools

The blockchain industry has been caught in a very limited mindset of how to judge a blockchain’s potential for meeting the needs of the modern digital economy. Transactions per second (TPS), the dominant unit for measuring the ability to scale, appears to be the only concern when designing blockchains. Indeed scale does matter, but as long as the blockchain stays decentralized. We’ve been wrongly thinking of blockchain systems as a zero sum game where you either get decentralization or you get scale, never attaining both at the same time. This notion is also known as the scalability trilemma. We need to, and can, debunk this false idea. In order to focus on this goal, I am proposing a new mental model for evaluating a blockchain’s potential for success: ScaDe (Scalability-per-unit-of-Decentralization). Why Scale Matters Scale is a bit of a vague term, but it loosely refers to the ability of a blockchain to meet the needs of the modern digital economy. To sustain a rapidly growing userbase, blockchains should possess three key traits, while retaining, or even better increasing, decentralization: Throughput (measured in transactions per second (TPS)) Cost (measured in fees) Size (measured in data) Without all of these characteristics, it’s unlikely the protocol will continue to be used over the long-term. The challenge has been achieving all of these qualities at once. The Bitcoin blockchain, for example, can process at most 7 transactions per second, with a transaction fee of a whopping at peak times, and a current blockchain size of about . 53 USD 260,900 MB Compared to Visa, which says it can process up to , 7 TPS isn’t great. Spending 53 USD per transaction on the other hand, can be worth it for large values, but is hardly an improvement over our existing financial system. Additionally, a blockchain size of nearly 270 GB is massive. Streaming a Full HD Netflix show for 1 hour uses about 3 GB. 65K transactions per second Graph from Solving the Scalability Trilemma blog post showing the number of nodes of Bitcoin (blue) and Ethereum (red) over time. Though Ethereum once showed potential for greater decentralization than Bitcoin, the number of nodes has decreased over time. At this point you might be wondering what Bitcoin is good for, given its latency, relatively high cost to send a transaction, and incredibly data-heavy blockchain. Bitcoin continues to demonstrate utility as a store of value, which doesn’t require the same characteristics that are essential for transacting in a fast-paced digital economy. That said, Bitcoin’s design does not make it a great solution for p2p payments or as an infrastructure layer to power decentralized applications (dapps). Attempted Solutions Unfortunately most other cryptocurrency networks are not much better than Bitcoin when it comes to improving scalability while retaining decentralization. As the below graph illustrates, generally speaking, as scalability improves, decentralization decreases, with the most “scalable” blockchains like Ripple coming awfully close to being centralized databases. Graph from Solving the Scalability Trilemma blog post plotting number of nodes vs. Scale (TPS) for various blockchain networks. There are many protocol layers attempting to resolve blockchain’s scalability issue with layer-two solutions like Bitcoin’s Lightning Network or infrastructure solutions like sharding. Unfortunately, layer-two solutions involve projecting some transactions off-chain for faster processing, which is a loss to transparency and security. In a similar vein, sharding involves the creation of smaller networks within the whole, but this solution puts these “mini consensus zones” at greater risk to attacks (when a majority of nodes collude against the whole to accept an incorrect version of the blockchain that benefits themselves). Some projects have sought to address blockchain’s scalability issue by focusing on block size, which, in many ways, is the heart of the problem. Bitcoin has a fixed block size at about 1 MB. This relatively small block size means a limited number of transactions can fit within each block (at the time of writing: ). This creates competition over which transactions are processed first. Users who want faster processing can pay a higher fee, which means there is often a long queue of low-fee transactions that haven’t been prioritized by miners. 2,140 transactions/block Increasing block size allows for more transactions per block and so decreases competition over which transactions are validated first and lowers fees, but this choice introduces a different problem. Larger block size means upping the resource requirements of both validating and full nodes, as they must process more data per block. A smaller pool of eligible nodes leads to centralization, which starts to errode the purpose of using a blockchain in the first place. How Do We Fix It? First, we need a new language to better encompass the solution blockchain projects should strive for—one that incorporates scale and decentralization. To give us a better way to talk about this, I’m proposing a new term: (Scalability-per-unit-of-Decentralization). ScaDe By incorporating decentralization into the unit of measure that we are using to compare projects, we will be that much more accurate in our analysis of who is making real progress. To-date, scale and transactions per second (TPS) have been used synonymously, but as discussed at the top of this article, TPS is only one piece of what is required to meet the needs of the modern digital economy. A scalable blockchain should not only be fast, but also have low fees and be lightweight from a data perspective—all without sacrificing decentralization. If we continue to use only TPS to measure a project’s potential, we will be making judgements on which projects are teeing-up the future of the industry based on a third or less of the important information. The new model, ScaDe, helps us work towards a solution that will genuinely meet the needs of the modern-day digital economy without sacrificing the core values of decentralization that make blockchain networks distinct from all other systems. (In full disclosure, our project, Coda Protocol , is utilizing recursive zk-SNARKs to eliminate the cumbersome issue of block size and instead represent the entire history of blockchain transactions in a light-weight proof that is only about 3 kb, or the size of a few tweets).

Scale and Decentralization Shouldn’t Be at Odds

State of Cryptocurrencies: Summer 2018

Bitcoin: Past and Future

Introduction Mobile banking is not what it used to be just a few years ago. Customers around the world are discovering new kinds of experiences that minimize visits to physical branches (or eliminate them altogether) in favor of hyper-convenient, feature-rich apps that let you track expenses, build a budget, or even trade stocks and crypto. quicker to welcome these new experiences, like the EU, Russia and Latin America. On the other hand, we can see some of the markets, like the US, resisting change owing to legacy banking systems and stricter legislation. But the common truth is that mobile banking is not only here to stay - it will never be the same again. In this article we will look at some of the current mobile banking trends that are redefining your day-to-day financial operations, as well as new approaches to building mobile banking apps and their potential future. Trends Security Let’s first talk about the issue that prevents someone from trying mobile banking in the first place: the safety of their data and funds. As mobile devices introduced new security features like on-device encryption and biometric authentication (first with fingerprints, later with the face and even with your iris), mobile banking has seen an explosion in adoption since it first became a concept with the breakthrough of the smartphone in 2008. Biometrics But progress in that area hasn’t stopped. On the contrary, cybersecurity engineers are constantly introducing new security measures aiming at preventing attacks from happening in the first place and boosting devices’ underlying security. The pandemic has exacerbated the need for security methods that rely on non-fungible traits of the bank account owner rather than passwords or secret codes that can be copied. For example, voice recognition technology has made great strides in becoming available for use in the mobile banking context, and some companies have successfully launched pilots. At Sinara Bank, we aim to build trust in our biometric solutions as we adopt the “One-time contact” approach to offering our retail banking services. This means the client needs to complete a one-time biometric authentication procedure in our branch, and subsequent banking services will be provided on a remote-first basis. We are also experimenting with offering initial biometric authentication without any branch visits at all, and are seeing a positive dynamic with adoption. Voice biometrics is increasingly getting adopted by US bank call centers to securely authenticate account holders who can finally ditch learning a secret phrase or punching in their credit card number on the line. HSBC UK claims it was able to prevent almost £1 billion in customer funds from being stolen by malicious actors thanks to its adoption of voice authentication technology. These “voiceprint” models can be effectively scaled to mobile apps and even combined with existing biometric authentication methods like fingerprint and face recognition to create a unique biometric identity for every customer that is simply impossible to spoof. Real-Time Monitoring Banks also turn to Big Data models to learn how to identify and stop attacks in real time by monitoring millions of active processes across branches and security systems and identifying patterns that would indicate an attack vector. Data analytics derived from banking mobile apps can be a principal contributor to ensuring the security of the banking system. Features Banking apps are more feature-rich than ever. Here are some of the innovations that keep banning customers coming back: Superapps Banking apps have evolved from simply allowing users to check their balance and conduct basic transfer operations to offering the full scope of banking services and even third-party integrations that simplify everyday tasks and empower a healthier financial lifestyle. These bank apps offer instant chat-style customer support, built-in loan instruments and financial expenses dashboards that help customers track their spending habits and plan ahead, automatic bill payment, and sometimes even public transportation payment options, airline tickets and cinema and theater tickets, typically offered as part of the bank’s loyalty program. Of course, customers increasingly find banking apps with better UX to be more appealing. According to internal research by Sinara Bank, only 7% of our clients took advantage of remote APR deposits in 2019. In 2022, that number was 60%. We are seeing a similar dynamic with pre-approved loans as well. This year alone, our app’s MAU and DAU have jumped 11% and 20% respectively. In addition to that, almost all of our clients transitioned to mobile-only banking, abandoning desktop versions and bank branch visits altogether, with just under 10% of our client base sticking to the legacy desktop web application to manage their finances. Overall penetration of our mobile banking app skyrocketed from 40% to 75% over the past few years, with even the most skeptical groups like elderly depositors finally moving on. We can confidently say that clients overwhelmingly prefer a remote-first banking approach, and we responded accordingly with all new features being remote and mobile-only. More Ways To Pay NFC payments are arguably the most convenient way to pay for goods and services - just tap with your phone and you’re done. It’s seamless, secure and blazing fast, but also not the only way to pay with a smartphone. The banking apps of 2023 need to support more ways of payment to offer customers choice and flexibility, plus, retail chains may create special cashback programs that incentivize customers to use one payment method over the other. QR code payments are a fantastic alternative to NFC payments for customers who, for example, don’t have an NFC-enabled device. This way, they can quickly pay by pointing their camera at the QR code at the checkout counter and deduct funds directly from their bank account. Another popular way to pay is digital wallets and bank-enabled BNPL services which have skyrocketed in recent years as players like Klarna, ShopPay and Afterpay introduced simple loan-based payments on websites, typically with zero interest. Banks are creating hybrid services that combine easy-to-use digital wallets that do not require card credentials with BNPL options that incentivize quick purchases and create an additional revenue stream. Instant Transfers Gone are the days when you needed someone's sixteen-digit bank account number and other lengthy details to conduct a basic wire transfer, which would be executed within several banking business days. At Sinara Bank, we introduced instant operations like C2C, C2B and me-2-me pulls several years ago. Now, we’ve added phone number and QR code transfers between individuals and organizations. We already hit a turnover of $4 million on these operations, up from zero, and we are currently testing instant phone number-based cross-border transfers as well. This trend is global: for example, the US’ Federal Reserve is currently testing its instant transfer system called FedNow that would finally allow the aging US banking system to catch up with the modern world. Of course, other phone number-based transfer applications like Zelle aren’t quick to give up their market shares. Virtual Assistants In the advent of virtual assistants, users rely on Siri, Google Assistant, and even on brand new products like Bing Chat to simplify their interactions with devices and boost productivity, and banks are implementing the same functionality in banking apps to speed up routine tasks like sending quick transfers to relatives or paying bills. Artificial intelligence AI is all the rage, and banks can take advantage of it to perform deeper financial analysis of its customers and offer more personalized financial products. Some companies like Affirm already use AI to accurately score potential borrowers with limited credit history. Crypto and Assets Digital currency is not only for enthusiasts anymore. Governments around the world are flocking to legalize and take advantage of all that digital assets have to offer. Even the United States is piloting a so-called “digital dollar” that should unlock next-generation banking capabilities for millions of retail clients. Sinara Bank is proud to be one of the Russian banks partaking in the digital ruble pilot program. But industry-wide adoption does not stop with analogs of regular currency - many banking apps are starting to integrate with popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. Some of the leading global banks that are opening their doors to crypto include Revolut, Ally Bank, USAA and even Bank of America., Banking-as-a-Service Neobanks have recently sprung up across the financial landscape to provide competition to traditional banks by undercutting them and introducing features previously unheard of. These novel institutions often lack branches and boast convenient apps with features that younger customers have come to expect from digitally native financial services like PayPal. In response, banks are turning to Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platforms to create customized neobank-like experiences that rely on their own infrastructure, diversify their offerings and attract more customers. An everyday example of BaaS solutions are airline credit cards that one might use regularly to accumulate miles and fly cheaper. These cards are issued by banks, not airlines, and in this scenario, both of them reap the benefits. Another example of BaaS are neobank-esque financial companies like Chime that rely on the infrastructure of a legacy bank (in this case, Bancorp Bank, N.A. and Stride Bank, N.A.) to provide services that the underlying banks do not, thus netting those banks more clients. Open Banking Similarly to BaaS, open banking involves the bank opening up some of its tightly kept infrastructure to a third party, but unlike BaaS, it is designed to integrate information from your account with a third party app, like a financial management and planning app that keeps track of your expenses for you. An example of this is Wallet by BudgetBakers, which can synchronize with your bank account to unlock insights into your spending, projected income and overall financial outlook. Conclusion Any banking app can check your balance. So if you want your app to stand out in this increasingly crowded feel, think of ways to pack as many features as possible in the simplest app possible. The future of mobile banking is that of peace-of-mind security that customers don’t have to think twice about, and of infinite flexibility that allows them to manage their entire financial life from a single app. And with more artificial intelligence tools becoming available every day, it’s up to the banks and app developers to take advantage of it to create apps customers will rely on throughout their entire financial journey.

CODA PAYMENTS

codapayments.com

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Since 2011

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CODA PAYMENTS

codapayments.com

501-1K employees

Since 2011

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CODA PAYMENTS

EVERGREEN INDEX #2602

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