 Hey guys, it's MJ and in this video. We're looking at 18 fintech stories Now the trend for this year is that European companies are going to be expanding Cryptocurrency is going to be a player and of course Amazon is getting involved in the space But let's jump into the 18 top stories So the first story talks about how investment for insurance tech is increasing Drastically, so if you're an act tree and you're with computers Congratulations, there could be a lot of money pouring in to your business The second story is that one of South Africa's most innovative banks or they they like to claim that They've written a whole white paper discussing blockchain and Bitcoin how it works and why it is a threat Story number three is that a new digital bank has emerged in South Africa And it's been created by someone called Michael Jordan Now I got a lot of messages asking if that Michael Jordan was was me and I was like no guys you can see, you know, his name is spelt wrong But I can't forgive them because I did have a Facebook status back in September last year where I was talking about banking So we can forgive people for mistaking that was me or the only three people like that that status Yeah, I'm not not that popular on Facebook. Anyway, coming back to our stories Stripe, which is one of the first online payment platforms to support Bitcoin is going to be stopping that support due to transaction speeds and transaction costs and Steam is a digital gaming platform that has rather embraced light coin because of its Foster transaction and lower cost compared to Bitcoin So it's a weird story because it's kind of saying a Bitcoin bet But it's failing to appreciate the other currencies like light coin Then we're seeing a company called air buy That is signed up 56 e-commerce sites that is allowing Bitcoin to to come in So if you still got Bitcoin, don't worry about stripe There are other things popping up so that you can spend your coins if you watch wish wish to do so Story number six is empty in empty in our planning on becoming the biggest bank in Africa They're a telecommunication company and they're growing like crazy I actually have shares in this company because I think it's gonna be a real success story Then we've got virgin money and they've taken on this app called spot and and I like spot I was one of the first people in the country to download spots and play around with it So it's really cool to see that this app which allows people to transfer money on a non-blockchain platform It's really cool to see how they will all develop Coming back to blockchain. We see Luno Setting up offices in Malaysia, which is going to be pretty cool There was a little bit of problems that they're having with the Malaysian regulation authorities earlier So we're gonna see these offices probably going to be set up to comply with regulation I've got a lot of friends who work at Luno. They're a great company and they were I get my bitcoins from Then we move on to cappy tech and cappy tech is a small bank in South Africa That's trying to break in with the big four But a really fun stat that's come out is that they're seeing more Banking happening on smartphone app rather than what's happening in their brick-and-mortar branches So it's a really cool to see that digital banking is taking taking hold in our country Um story number 10 is some company called the Devere group who I need to be honest I have no idea who they are, but they're making a cryptocurrency app So, you know, we'd include them in the top top 18 stories then we look at n chain which are a London-based blockchain Company and they've just bought an equity stake in a South African company called sent be which creates Bitcoin Wallets and they're going to try make it more user-friendly and easier to use Bitcoin as a payment mechanism Also focusing on South Africa our reserve bank is getting very Involved with blockchain. I just read another story today that speaks about them embracing Ethereum and doing something on that So watch that space. They're one of many reserve banks around the world that are instead of fighting Cryptocurrency is actually embracing it and seeing how they can also use this amazing technology Then what we're seeing is China is getting more and more involved with Africa And they've partnered with standard bank to just make a whole bunch of e-commerce between China and Africa go through more smoothly So that's quite a cool story to watch Then we have net one if you're based in South Africa, you'll know a lot of the controversy around net one But for this story what they've done is they're buying more and more stake in a bank called Frick which helps You know companies do the whole initial coin offering in the whole Swiss Liechtenstein area in Europe So it's quite cool to see South Africa also buying European firms. It's not just European firms buying South African firms Then also quite a cool thing is Thomas Cook They've partnered with the company to do travel insurance But what I found interesting was they're gonna have a cryptocurrency exchange and for me This is one of the big use cases of cryptocurrency as an international currency. It's great for tourists You can buy a Bitcoin in whatever country you are come to Cape Town and spend it in the shops around here So it's really cool to see tourist companies and travel Getting involved with crypto because it's a great use case Then we're looking to to the Netherlands and we're seeing that the Dutch Development Bank is Starting all these initiatives that's going to connect FinTech companies with financial Institutions and they're expecting this to create a lot of revenue streams. So keep an eye on that one Then I think everybody hates fecuring and compliance and Signing up and making sure that you're not a financial terrorist Well, there's a company called Doc Fox, which is gonna try and simplify this entire process. So Let's root for them. And then finally City Bank has issued a report saying that the Bitcoin holdings as a percentage of GDP is highest in Russia New Zealand, Nigeria, Ukraine, Kenya, South Africa, UK and Colombia And it's great to see three African countries there, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. So That's quite a cool story as well. But anyway, those are our top 18 stories Please let me know if you've got any comments. And as always, thanks for watching. Cheers guys