Chime Financial Inc., a financial technology company focused on no-fee banking services, has submitted a confidential filing with the US government for its initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fintech Startup Chime Submits Confidential Filing for IPO - Bloomberg

Chime

chime

This story was originally published on by . ProPublica Carson Kessler The day after Jonathan Marrero’s federal stimulus payment landed in his bank account, he took his 5-year-old twins out for lunch at an Applebee’s near where he lives in New Jersey. When he went to pay, his only means of payment, a debit card issued by the hot financial technology startup Chime, was declined. He didn’t understand why. Marrero had checked his account earlier that day and saw a balance of nearly $10,000. With the Applebee’s server standing next to him, he quickly pulled out his phone to check his Chime app, just as he had hundreds of times since he signed up in January. Marrero couldn’t log in. He immediately checked his email and found a message from Chime that read, “We regret to inform you that we have made the decision to end our relationship with you at this time. Your spending account will be closed on March 18, 2021.” He had no choice but to call his parents and have them pay the lunch bill. “I was so embarrassed,” said Marrero, a 32-year-old motorcycle technician. “I’m a grown man, and I was tearing up and everything.” Speaking of the $10,000 that he was suddenly locked out of, he added, “If it was $100, I wouldn’t sweat it. But it was everything I had for my kids.” Marrero’s grievance is not unusual. Chime, which provides app-based banking services to an estimated 12 million customers, has according to experts been generating a high rate of complaints, with 920 filed at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since April 15, 2020. “For a company that most people have never heard of, I think that’s a lot of complaints,” said Lauren Saunders of the National Consumer Law Center. Many customers have told the CFPB that they can’t access their money or accounts, and that, among other things, Chime is slow to resolve problems. Of the 920 complaints filed about Chime, 197 were tagged as involving a “closed account.” The CFPB’s complaints are labeled inconsistently, and many of the other 723 also detail problems involving accounts that were closed against customers’ will. By comparison, Wells Fargo, a bank with six times as many customers and a lengthy of in its consumer bank, has 317 CFPB complaints tagged for closed accounts over the same time period. recent history misbehavior Marcus, the new online bank created by Goldman Sachs, with 4 million customers, has generated seven such complaints. Customers have also filed 4,439 complaints against Chime at the Better Business Bureau, compared to 3,281 for Wells Fargo. Meanwhile, several Facebook groups have sprung up with names like “Chime Bank has FAILED” and “Chime Thieves.” They’ve attracted some 700 members combined. One group has more than 100 posts and comments, almost all of them saying some version of the same thing. “Chime stole my entire unemployment backpay,” reads one typical post. Another says, “I’m a single mom of 4 kids and they stolen $1400 from me and refuse to give it back and now we are about to be evicted.” Chime doesn’t look much better on Google, where, according to the site’s “People Also Ask” feature, two of the questions most often posed about Chime are “Is Chime bank a real bank?” and, at various points in recent weeks, “Is Chime a ripoff?” or “Does Chime steal your money?” Most of the company’s CFPB complaints have been “closed with explanation,” a designation that conveys that Chime has resolved the dispute privately with the customer; the company is in the process of responding to the rest. As for the BBB complaints, Chime has said on the BBB’s website that it “takes these issues seriously” and that its “top priority is protecting its members.” Chime portrayed the customer complaints as largely driven by the company’s attempts to crack down on accounts that use fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance or federal stimulus payments. “As a leader in the US payments ecosystem and as part of our commitment to Chime members, we take seriously our responsibility to detect and prevent fraud,” asserted a provided by spokesperson Gabe Madway. statement “The past year has seen an extraordinary surge in activity by those seeking to illicitly obtain pandemic-related government funds and defraud US taxpayers. By some credible estimates, may have transpired. $400 billion worth of unemployment fraud alone We are proud of Chime’s robust anti-fraud efforts, which have returned hundreds of millions of dollars to state and federal agencies during the pandemic. While it’s important for us to fight fraud, our top focus will always be to take care of our members. And despite our best efforts, we do make mistakes.” The statement also touted Chime as having “proven that basic banking services can be helpful, easy and free.” It’s easy to see why Chime has caught on. Opening an account takes minutes. Chime’s app is intuitive and easy to use. The service welcomes customers with spotty credit histories and doesn’t require a credit check. It has no monthly fees and keeps other charges to a minimum. (It takes a small slice of the interchange fees paid by the merchant each time a customer uses a Chime card.) ‘ For customers who sign up for direct deposit, Chime offers two-day interest-free advances on paychecks, IRS refunds or government stimulus checks. The company has marketed aggressively in both new media and old. The company displays a youthful sensibility online, tweeting out memes on its Twitter feed. At the same time, its logo is plastered in many locations, including opposite the Nike swoosh on the uniforms of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. Chime is now the largest in a growing subcategory of financial technology, or fintech, companies known as “neobanks” (more on that later) that serve low- to moderate-income individuals underserved by traditional banks. The neobanks have thrived in the past year, vying with each other to land consumers looking for somewhere to deposit government stimulus payments, according to Jason Mikula, managing director for 312 Global Strategies, a fintech consultancy. Chime offered new and existing customers a “Stimulus Sweepstakes” that dangled a chance of winning $1,200. Chime built a base of 8 million customers between its launch in 2013 and 2020, then jumped to 12 million over the past year, according to Cornerstone Advisors. Many of the new accounts began with deposits from federal stimulus payments, according to a recent analysis by Cornerstone and StrategyCorps, two financial service companies that specialize in consumer research. All that growth has made Chime, which is based in San Francisco, a hit in Silicon Valley. Venture capitalists have given the company a valuation of $14.5 billion, and the company’s CEO said in late May that Chime might prepare to go public as early as this fall. For all of Chime’s Silicon Valley tech patina, one thing it’s not is an actual bank. Like others in its category, Chime is a digital interface that hands over the actual banking to, in this instance, two regional institutions, The Bancorp Bank and Stride Bank. Chime customers interact with the Chime app, but Bancorp and Stride, both of which are FDIC-insured, hold their money. Since Chime is not a bank, that leaves it in a regulatory no man’s land, according to Alex Horowitz, senior research officer for the consumer finance project at the Pew Charitable Trusts. The rules and jurisdiction are murky at best. “When you have a fintech that is the consumer interface, they don’t have a primary regulator,” he said. “They’re primarily regulated as a vendor to the existing bank, because banks are required to manage their vendors and they’re responsible for third-party relationships. But it’s still a step removed.” Bancorp and Stride have an obligation to police Chime, according to Mikula. “The regulatory treatment should not be any different than if I myself went directly into Stride and opened up a demand deposit account or checking account,” Mikula said. “There should be no different threshold because Chime is a fintech.” (Bancorp and Stride did not respond to requests for comment.) The legal environment may be murky, but Chime has already attracted the attention of state regulators. In late 2019, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation received complaints about an outage in Chime’s system that prevented consumers from accessing accounts and left many unable to pay their bills. The agency investigated and found a different violation: It concluded that Chime had violated state law by describing itself as a bank on its website and elsewhere. “DFPI found this was likely to confuse consumers into thinking Chime was an online bank,” the agency said in a statement to ProPublica. “Chime itself is not licensed or insured as a bank.” in late March. DFPI and Chime agreed to an administrative settlement Chime neither admitted to nor denied the findings but agreed to take a detailed series of actions on its website and promotional materials to make clear that it is not a bank. (A similar agreement was also reached with regulators in Illinois.) Even after the settlement, as of early July, Chime’s offered mixed messages. At the top, it stated, in large letters, “Banking that has your back.” homepage A bit lower, below the “get started” button, in much smaller type, were the words, “Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank.” The word “banking” is much more prominent on Chime’s home page than the words “not a bank.” Chime told ProPublica that it is in compliance with the settlement agreement and that all of the necessary changes have been made. California has also responded more broadly to the rise of fintech companies. On Jan. 1, a new law, the California Consumer Financial Protection Law, took effect. It gives the state new authority over providers of financial products and services. (The March settlement with Chime was based on preexisting statutes.) “The purpose of the new law was to clarify that if you’re meeting the definition of being in the business of providing consumer financial products and services, then yes, DFPI has jurisdiction over you,” said Suzanne Martindale, senior deputy commissioner of the agency’s Consumer Financial Protection Division. “We can supervise, we can draft regulation, and we also have authority to stop unfair, deceptive and abusive acts and practices and can enforce any state or federal consumer financial law.” Martindale did not comment directly on the complaints about account closures, but said, “We continue to monitor for compliance.” She said that if regulators uncovered “new activities that suggest there may be a violation or there may be a deceptive misrepresentation,” then “we may have to take a look.” Many of the complaints about Chime relate to the same things that spurred the company’s growth over the past year: government payments for stimulus aid, PPP, unemployment insurance and tax refunds. Indeed, many account closures occurred directly after a government deposit, according to customers interviewed by ProPublica and the CFPB complaints. That meant Chime was simultaneously pushing to land new accounts from customers with stimulus checks while trying to vet millions of new accounts for suspicious payments. (There is widespread agreement that fraud involving unemployment-insurance and stimulus claims has been rampant during the pandemic, though estimates of its scope have varied wildly.) Banks and neobanks are expected to take action if they see signs of suspicious activity, typically by filing a report with federal authorities, according to Mikula. Chime’s approach involves three levels of potential action. If Chime decides that the evidence of fraud is conclusive, it typically closes the relevant account and returns the money to the government if the account was opened with a check from the government. If Chime sees what it considers suspicious behavior — but can’t conclusively determine that fraud has occurred — it can still terminate the account, but then typically returns the funds to the account holder. Finally, Chime says that if its investigation confirms that a payment was legitimate, it unfreezes the account. In reporting for this article, ProPublica interviewed 13 current or former Chime customers who claimed the company had wrongly frozen their funds or closed their accounts. ProPublica discussed the details with the company. Chime confirmed that five of the anecdotes were well-founded; the company acknowledged making mistakes and returned each customers’ funds. In two other instances, the company was able to provide documentary evidence of fraud and said it had not returned the customers’ funds. That left six complaints, and there the situation was much murkier and raised questions about the company’s approach. In its statement, Chime asserted that those six “did in fact involve fraud and/or violations of our terms.” Yet the evidence of misbehavior that Chime cited in conversations with ProPublica generally consisted of the same act that its marketing encouraged: Opening a new account using a federal stimulus check or a payment from unemployment insurance. In those instances, Chime said, it or its bank partners had closed the accounts but returned the funds to customers. Inadequate compliance management may be partially to blame for Chime’s problems, said former CFPB staff member Chris Peterson, who is now a law professor at the University of Utah. “As fintech businesses start to move into banking services,” he said, “they have to have adequate resources to monitor problems that emerge in their financial services” and then resolve them. The sudden account closures have put financially vulnerable customers under stress. That’s the situation Michelle Robertson, 52, found herself in. After getting burned by overdraft and minimum balance fees at her traditional bank, Robertson signed up with Chime three years ago. The pandemic wasn’t easy for Robertson, a computer technician in Richmond, California, who is also a single mother and the full-time caregiver for her elderly father. A much-needed infusion of cash was set to be deposited into Robertson’s Chime account the week of March 10: a $1,200 stimulus deposit and a $3,500 tax refund. She planned to use the money to catch up on the stack of bills that had been piling up. But on March 4, after setting up her Chime direct deposit with the IRS, Robertson received an email closing both her spending and savings accounts. Chime’s email, which Robertson shared with ProPublica, offered almost the same explanation as the company email provided to Marrero: “Following a recent review of your Spending Account, we regret to inform you that we have made the decision to end our relationship with you at this time.” She was unable to use her debit card, access the money in her accounts or sign in to the mobile app. The email informed Robertson that a check for any remaining balance would be mailed to her within 30 days. Citing “security reasons,” Chime’s email stated the company couldn’t explain to Robertson why her account was closed. (The company confirmed, in interviews for this article, that it should not have closed Robertson’s account.) She was directed to a passage in the company’s account agreement that states, “Chime and/or Bank may suspend, freeze, or close your Account for any reason with or without notice” and “Funds on deposit in any Account are subject to hold at the Bank’s discretion until the source of such funds and/or the activity is properly verified.” Robertson didn’t have much money in the account when it was closed, but the prospect of not knowing the status of her incoming deposits scared her. “I lost my mind. I couldn't believe it,” she said. “It was very shocking, just for them to tell me that and then not know why and then have all this money that I was really, really counting on.” What followed was a frustrating roundelay in which Chime directed Robertson to the IRS, and the IRS directed her to Chime. In one email, Chime told Robertson, “Please note that any Direct Deposits such as your Tax Refund that can be received during the account access restriction, may have been rejected and returned to the sender in the next 1-3 business days so, we encourage you to contact the originator of your deposit to avoid any further delays.” Robertson’s interaction with Chime’s customer service provided no new answers. She kept getting emails telling her to “contact the issuer” and stating that no “further information” could be given about the closing of her account. (According to 10 other Chime customers, users are discouraged from contacting customer service via phone or sending multiple emails; they’re told that doing so could “cause the review time to be extended,” as one Chime email put it.) With more than two months having passed with no access to her money, the consequences grew dire for Robertson. Unable to pay her bills, she feared eviction from her home, car payments were delayed, her cell phone was shut off, and late-payment fees piled up. Eventually, in late May, the federal government came through: Robertson received a paper check for her stimulus payment; the tax refund followed a few weeks later. She no longer has a Chime account and has no intention of ever signing back up. In its statement to ProPublica, Chime said that “for those cases where Chime did make a mistake, including the two highlighted in this story, we sincerely apologize. We have made efforts to make things right with these members.” (Robertson said that, beyond unfreezing her funds, Chime has not contacted her.) For his part, Jonathan Marrero finally got his account reopened in late May after filing complaints to the CFPB and BBB. He said Chime (which confirmed to ProPublica that it had erred in closing Marrero’s account) provided no explanation for blocking him from his funds for more than two months beyond telling him there had been suspicious activity in his account. Marrero immediately withdrew all of the remaining funds. “It’s been torture,” he said. After this article was published, Michelle Robertson emailed ProPublica to say that a Chime executive apologized to her on July 4.' Update, July 7, 2021: Photo by on Adam Nir Unsplash

Why Was This Banking App Closing People's Accounts?

¿Por qué esta aplicación bancaria cerraba las cuentas de las personas?

Pourquoi cette application bancaire fermait-elle les comptes des personnes ?

क्यों बंद कर रहा था यह बैंकिंग ऐप लोगों के खाते?

この銀行アプリが人々の口座を閉鎖したのはなぜですか?

Por que esse aplicativo bancário estava fechando as contas das pessoas?

Tại sao ứng dụng ngân hàng này lại đóng tài khoản của mọi người?

为什么这个银行应用程序会关闭人们的账户？

Challenge Chime wanted an error monitoring solution that would work with React Native, unify its error management across platforms, and ensure stable experiences for iOS and Android users. Results Chime benefits from complete clarity during app releases with Bugsnag’s stack traces, filtering, and Stability Center, which enable complete error monitoring and fast debugging to ensure app stability and lower crash rates**.** Chime Aims to Stabilize User Experiences and Lower Crash Rates Founded in 2012, Chime is a technology company that believes banking should be helpful and easy. Chime offers mobile access to banking services provided by its partner banks to provide members with a Spending Account, optional Savings Account, and Chime Visa ® Debit Card. Members can also access SpotMe for no overdraft fees and receive their paychecks up to two days early. Over two years ago, Chime consolidated its Android and iOS mobile app development on the React Native (RN) platform. Chime’s mobile engineers recognized the need for a stability management solution that would work seamlessly with RN and provide more details than the typical error monitoring tool. “We wanted to track crash rates to make sure we improved the stability of the product over time,” states an engineering manager on the spending and savings team. “We wanted to track crash rates to make sure we improved the stability of the product over time.” – Engineering Manager, Chime Shift to React Native Required Support From an Error Monitoring Solution When Chime originally launched its services, the company developed separate Android and iOS mobile apps. Approximately four years later, the decision was made to move to the React Native platform to consolidate engineering efforts and deliver a unified member experience. By enabling engineers to work on both iOS and Android apps, Chime could align its development around product features rather than app platforms and thereby deliver the same features to all customers faster. Hand-in-hand with this decision was the need to find an error monitoring solution that could handle RN apps. Chime did not want to rely solely on the built-in app store tools. Not only would it be more difficult to track crashes and monitor unexpected errors, but some errors are platform-specific. The team wanted a solution that would bring all bugs together in a single monitoring location and provide stack traces. A mobile engineer recommended that Chime evaluate Bugsnag. As the only error monitoring solution that supports RN, Bugsnag aggregates errors across iOS and Android platforms and provides the level of detail that the mobile engineers wanted. Today, Bugsnag is used across product teams within Chime. “With React Native, the same developers are working on both platforms. If we used only the built-in tools with the Play Store or Apple Store, it would be more difficult to track the crashes,” an engineering manager explains. “With Bugsnag, we have one very useful tool where we can see both sides.” Bugsnag Enables Release Stability and Control Over All Error Types Bugsnag is used by Chime for monitoring release rollouts and for debugging. As each new release goes out, mobile engineers use filters to find any spikes in errors, determine what they are, how many events have happened, and how many users are impacted. Bugsnag supports error data on Android’s ANR (Application Not Responding), Chime includes them in its crash rates. “Anything that detracts from the customer experience is really important to us. That’s why we think of crashes and ANRs similarly and include ANRs in our crash rate,” explains an engineering manager. “Beyond monitoring crashes, we’re able to monitor when unexpected errors come through and handle those gracefully,” a software engineer states. “It gives us deeper control over what’s erroring out in the app and provides stack trace along those lines as well.” The team uses stack traces to view the line of code where the app crashed, breadcrumbs as a secondary method to narrow down unhandled crashes, and custom data in the Bugsnag error reports to group errors and debug. Chime Decreases Crash Rate and Saves Debugging Time With Bugsnag Since using Bugsnag, Chime has exceeded its software stability goals. Engineers are able to maintain a healthy application stability score and spend less time investigating and fixing bugs. “It’s a helpful tool,” says a Chime software engineer, recognizing Bugsnag as playing a role in that accomplishment. “Bugsnag accelerates the debugging process,” adds an engineering Manager. Adding custom metadata in Bugsnag has been particularly useful to Chime as it provides more context behind crashes. Chime is focused on developing a deep understanding of what its members are encountering in the app and providing the best experience possible. Chime also benefits from Bugsnag integrations with Jira and Slack for seamless ticketing, communication, and monitoring of its app store ratings. “It’s a great tool for delivering a better customer experience, making the app more stable, and taking pride in your application as an engineer.” – Software Engineer, Chime

How to Reduce Your Crash Rate 

Chimezie Emewulu, is a tech founder with over fifteen years of experience building tech products. He is the founder of Seamfix, a people & software development company that seamlessly automates processes for productivity and revenue for over 100 million Nigerians and their businesses. He started building during his second year of University and has not stopped building ever since. In this interview, Chimezie sits down with Peace to share his experience building Seamfix, and all the experience he has garnered from being a tech business man for years. He goes into detail about the experience he has garnered through the years, shares some of his biggest wins, talks about visibility, growing poor and a passion for philanthropy and gives a lot of valuable advice to founders and potential founders seeking to build their own companies. Watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp2iLd4nUxs Video timestamps - Chimezie shares his background 1:02 - Starting Seamfix in 2007 3:11 - Finding Engineering, First experience Coding 4:28 - Early days of Seamfix 8:27 - Key Milestones in the last 15 years 11:27 - Examples of Seamfix Solutions 12:13 - What he wants to change in the next 10 years 18:18 - Biggest Challenges building Seamfix 20:02 - Intricacies of Running Business 25:00 - Key mistakes made while running Seamfix 30:00 - Advice for upcoming entrepreneurs 33:44

#FoundersConnect: Chimezie Emewulu, Co-Founder and MD of Seamfix Limited.

the “chimera” in Greek mythology — the fantasy, the illusion Tokenization is nothing new The term “tokenization” is mainly associated with securities, equities and real assets and indicates the creation of a digital token which represents ownership rights to the underlying assets and which is issued on a Blockchain. But tokenization is nothing new. It is an evolution of derivative instruments and securitized assets such . per se ABS For instance, the s and at the heart of the 2009 financial crisis were substantially tokens representing debt. The first examples of go back to the 17th and 18th century. CDO MBS securitizations Despite and literally dozens of tokenization platforms springing up in the last 12 months and plenty of businesses willing to try to raise funds with it, very little practical progress has been done so far. Notwithstanding the announcements of imminent issuance of tokens representing equities or real assets, none has yet been practically issued. the promises that I also share about the potential of STOs Perceived advantages of tokenization Governance participation mechanisms and automated dividend payments — which can be embedded in the smart contract — are often cited among the biggest advantages, together with the reduction of back-office work, the reduction of costs for the issuing companies and 24/7 trading. Fractional ownership is indeed also important as it helps democratize investing, but it is also not new and tokenization is just a new tool to achieve what has already been done in the past through fractional ownership of real estate or club-deals. Securitization vs tokenization So in what, practically, securitization and tokenization differ? Two things essentially: (i) the issuance of the token on a Blockchain, and (ii) the tradability/liquidity of the token on a digital secondary market. But the Blockchain has one fundamental scope: enabling the peer to peer trusted transfer of digital values, while providing certainty and immutability to that transfer. The first ever Blockchain — that of Bitcoin — was created to allow peer to peer transfers of bitcoins, not of real assets. By definition, its use can be easily extended to other digital assets or rights — such as digital photos, music or e-books for instance — which will benefit massively from the certainty and immutability which are intrinsic to the Blockchain. But as far as real assets or equities are concerned, the transfer and ownership titles are regulated by the law. Each jurisdiction has its own legal authorities which enable and certify such transfers. Real estate and land transfers are generally effective upon recording into Land Registries (at least in civil law countries, while the situation is more complex in countries such as the USA where the adoption of a public Blockchain based system can likely introduce certainty to the title ownership and cut conveyance costs and risks), car sales when entered into the motor vehicle registry, sales of equities in private companies when recorded into the companies´ registry. All those transactions are also likely certified by public Notaries in most jurisdictions. And the issue here is not to advocate whether the future Blockchain adoption may enhance the existing public systems of real estate or corporate ownership titles of any individual jurisdiction — which thing is also probably true — but to simply evaluate whether the Blockchain has some scope of use for tokenizing real assets or private equities within the existing systems. So the real question to answer is: can the on-chain tokenization of real assets and private equities bring more advantages or more problems in respect to a simpler off-chain tokenization? Tokenization use cases Let’s look at two use cases: use case A is the issuance of tokens representing private equity, while use case B is the issuance of corporate bonds/commercial papers or other corporate debt instruments by the same private company. In case A an SPV is needed as a vehicle for all the token holders to have a single entry in XYZ cap table. The SPV subscribes to XYZ share capital increase and owns the shares issued. The SPV will be managed by a nominee director under the terms of Trust Agreement I for the benefit of token holders. 100% of the shares of SPV will be owned by Trust I for the benefit of token holders. Trust Agreement I issues the tokens representing 100% of SPVs share capital. Under Trust Agreement II the shares of XYZ owned by SPV are held for the beneficial ownership of token holders. Note that in this case trusted third parties, such as a Public Notary and the Company Registry, are statutorily required in order to validate transactions. Therefore, in my opinion, the use of the Blockchain unnecessarily complicates things without bringing noticeable advantages. In case B instead, the same private company issues corporate debt. Because there are no statutory requirements for third party validations for the issue of debt instruments, such as the need to record it on a public registry, the token and the debt instrument are substantially the same thing and function on the same level. Therefore XYZ can issue directly to single buyers the tokens representing its debt. Tokens can be issued on the Ethereum Blockchain. A Smart Contract will embed the terms of the debt issuance in the token, such as automatic coupon/yield payments and the repayment of the principal at duration expiration with subsequent burning of all the tokens redeemed. Case B is therefore a good candidate for on-chain tokenization. Tokenizing real assets off-chain As seen above in use case A, when dealing with legally trusted authorities (such as land or companies registries) the Blockchain main functions — which are guaranteeing trust, transparency, immutability, non-corruption of data and non-duplication — are already performed by such authorities. Blockchain is therefore redundant. Well practised traditional legal structures such as SPVs, trustees, nominees and escrows — backed up by collaterals such as a mortgage or a pledge — are still needed to guarantee the investor (buy side) that the issued token is tied to the real world asset. This because the contractual promise — even if embedded in the smart contract — remains just an “unsecured contractual promise” which, without a collateral guarantee, still poses all the enforceability issues of any unsecured (contractual) promise. And until those public registries are not on the Blockchain themselves, the smart contract has limited practical application. Enforcement/execution — for real assets — takes place off-chain and therefore must be secured with traditional guarantees which can only function off-chain. Moreover, with such complex transaction structures, mistakes and disputes happen all the time and they need to be promptly rectified or solved. With public registries or with trusted parties mistakes can be easily rectified and disputes solved. Instead, Blockchains´ immutability and irreversibility features then become drawbacks. Without an appropriate mechanism for dispute resolution and reversibility, the Blockchain can render real asset transactions unmanageable. Therefore, in my opinion, the practical aspects of an on-chain real asset tokenization are still generally not sufficiently appreciated but when this is done, it appears that — in many cases — it is more efficient to tokenize/digitize real assets off-chain. Guaranteed liquidity is the key prerequisite Most importantly, what is still missing from the picture — — is the guaranteed liquidity and the possibility for the investors to effectively trade the tokens. Surprisingly, not much progress has been done on that very fundamental issue. and it is certainly the essential prerequisite for any tokenization either on or off-chain Only if deep pools of liquidity are brought in to ensure adequate market making, then tokenized assets may possibly scale-up in the future to match traditional financial instruments. Conclusions Summing it up: 1. Above all, deep liquidity of the digital secondary market is a prerequisite for any tokenization. 2. We can tokenize assets on-chain or off-chain. 3. Not every asset is suitable to be tokenized on-chain. 4. On-chain tokenization is advisable when the asset can be freely transferred without the statutory need of a third party off-chain validation (such as with corporate debt — as in Case B above — or, as an example, with unregistered real assets such as objects of art or plain digital assets such as digital photos, music, Cryptokitties etc). Here the Blockchain fully performs its main functions which are guaranteeing trust, transparency, immutability, non-corruption of data and non-duplication. 5. Off-chain tokenization is advisable when there is a statutory need for a third party off-chain validation of the transaction (such as with private equities — as in Case A above — or with real estate, cars, boats, planes, etc). Here the Blockchain is redundant because its main functions are already performed by the third party validation off-chain. 6. Of course, if and when those statutory registers will be on-chain themselves, then on-chain transactions will be possible also for real assets and the Smart Contract will be able to close the loop and to reconcile the ownership title of a real asset off-chain with the digital token (representing the asset) on-chain. 7. Of course the above conclusions may vary depending on the jurisdiction (eg. real estate on-chain tokenization may be advisable in the USA and not in Germany or Italy). : This paper is for general guidance only and it does not constitute legal advice. As such, it should not be used as a substitute for consultation with lawyers on specific issues. All information in this paper is provided “as is”, with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or warranty of any kind, express or implied. Legal Disclaimer #tokenization #cryptoassets #bianconi andrea #STOs #Blockchain

Why tokenization is still a chimera

Authors:
(1) Constantinos Patsakis, Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli & Dimitriou str., 18534 Piraeus, Greece and Information Management Systems Institute of Athena Research Centre, Greece;
(2) Fran Casino, Information Management Systems Institute of Athena Research Centre, Greece and Department of Computer Engineering and Mathematics, Universitat Rovira i Virgili;
(3) Nikolaos Lykousas, Data Centric, Romania. Authors: Authors: (1) Constantinos Patsakis, Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli & Dimitriou str., 18534 Piraeus, Greece and Information Management Systems Institute of Athena Research Centre, Greece; (2) Fran Casino, Information Management Systems Institute of Athena Research Centre, Greece and Department of Computer Engineering and Mathematics, Universitat Rovira i Virgili; (3) Nikolaos Lykousas, Data Centric, Romania. Table of Links Abstract and 1 Introduction Abstract and 1 Introduction 2 Related work 2.1 Malware analysis and countermeasures 2.1 Malware analysis and countermeasures 2.2 LLMs in cybersecurity 2.2 LLMs in cybersecurity 3 Problem setting 3 Problem setting 4 Setting up the experiment and the dataset 4 Setting up the experiment and the dataset 5 Experimental results and discussion 5 Experimental results and discussion 6 Integration with existing pipelines 6 Integration with existing pipelines 7 Conclusions, Acknowledgements, and References 7 Conclusions, Acknowledgements, and References 5 Experimental results and discussion For our experiments, we opted to use four state-of-the-art LLMs. More precisely, we used two cloudbased LLMs offered as services and two local ones. For the LLMs provided as cloud services, we opted for OpenAI’s GPT-4 (gpt-4-1106), considered the reference LLM, and the “Pro” variant of Google’s recently introduced LLM, Gemini. For both of them, we used the official APIs, as provided by OpenAI and Google, respectively. In terms of locally deployed LLMs, we considered the following models: Meta’s Code Llama Instruct (with 34B parameters) [30], which is based on Llama 2 with additional fine tuning on 500 billion tokens of source code data, as its name implies, is an LLM that is trained specifically in large chunks of code, and Mistral AI’s Mixtral 8x7B Instruct model [14]. For both models, the quantisation level was set to 8 bits (from 16 bits in the original model weights) for all tensors, and they were deployed on NVIDIA A100 GPUs. The above setting guarantees the proper diversity and representation of LLMs. It should be noted that, due to the criticality and sensitivity of the underlying data, malware analysts are expected to opt for local models to minimise the disclosure of such information to third parties. Using the dataset described above, we decided to assess the capabilities of LLMs to deobfuscate the corresponding scripts. To determine whether the LLMs managed to achieve the task, we argue that if an LLM can collect the URLs of a given script correctly, then the LLM has performed the deobfuscation to an acceptable degree and understood the context of the code efficiently. While we understand that the scope is relatively advanced for an LLM and that a code summary might be far more straightforward, we believe this would not be enough. First, the experiment’s goal is not to determine whether a script is malicious or benign. Conceptually, the chances of an obfuscated PowerShell script launched from MS Word being harmless are slim [17]. Thus, we assume the script is malicious, but we want to extract actionable intelligence from it. Moreover, tools like PSDecode that perform some deobfuscation in their summaries may provide some insight on what the code does, e.g., it downloads and executes some content from the Internet. Note that for such tools to deobfuscate the code, they resort to intercepting calls to functions and logging them. Therefore, the code has to be executed, requiring a sandboxed environment. From the logged information, such tools make keyword matches in the logs to identify specific actions. As such, while helpful, they do not understand the code and its content, which is what we would expect from an LLM. Crafting prompts for novel tasks requires brute-force trial-and-error experimentation, and different prompt templates with different wording choices lead to significant accuracy differences. The final prompt; see Figure 4 for OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Code Llama tasks to deobfuscate the scripts of our dataset, were selected after several iterations, empirically yielded the best results, particularly reducing hallucinations in local models. LLMs allow the control of the randomness and creativity of the responses they generate through a parameter referred to as temperature. In our experiments, we set the temperature for each LLM to zero so that the results are focused, deterministic, with the least possible hallucinations, and allow for reproducibility. Then, for each script, we extracted the URLs and compared them to our ground truth (i.e., determined whether the URLs were correctly extracted) to assess the LLMs’ accuracy in deobfuscation. Our assessment shows that OpenAI’s GPT-4 clearly outperforms all LLMs, correctly identifying 69.56% of the URLs, followed by Google’s Gemini Pro with almost half accuracy (36.84%). The two local LLMs scored very low, with Code Llama achieving only 22.13% and Mixtral 11.59%. Although these exhibit the prevalence of OpenAI’s GPT-4, there are further things to note. For instance, the deobfuscation might be partially successful, yet the URL domain can be extracted. From our experiments, this was the result of substitutions or splits that were not made. Therefore, we relaxed the task, requesting the extraction of the correct domain. In this simplified case, the results were significantly improved since each of the LLMs gained a boost of 13.33% (Code Llama) up to 19.16% (GPT-4) in accuracy. Beyond the poor performance of the two local LLMs, we also witnessed many hallucinations in the models. That is, outputs conforming to the request’s prompt; they are URLs, but factually, they are incorrect and make little sense. The extent of these haluccinations is illustrated in Figure 5c. By far, most hallucinations are generated by the lowest performing LLM, Mixtral, which is almost 70% more than the second LLM in hallucinations, Code Llama. Interestingly, there is no common hallucinated domain in the top 20 of all LLMs. On the contrary, there is only one hallucinated domain among GPT-4 and Gemini Pro, which is blueyellows.com. It is worth noting that the domain resembles blueyellowshop.com, which would be the correctly deobfuscated URL, indicating the partial deobfuscation from the LLM and an attempt to fill in the gaps identified. The most hallucinated domains are admins.com and blog.com from Mixtral. We attribute both these hallucinations to the existence of literals admin and blog in several URLs of our dataset and the corresponding scripts. Code llama often returned bogus domains of the form www.example?.com where ? is either NULL, 1, and 2. In this case, there were several WordPress URLs, e.g., http://www.example.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/image.png, probably stemming from the fact that Code Llama recognised something that looks like a WordPress URL from its training and substituted for that. Gemini Pro introduced several obvious hallucinations, e.g., youtube.com and facebook.com. Overall, we can claim that most hallucinated domains match the pattern of the blueyellows.com case discussed above, incorrectly processed domains by the LLM. Finally, we should note that there were a couple of instances where GPT-4 and Gemini Pro models refused to perform the task requested in the prompt, producing replies such as “I’m sorry, I cannot extract URLs from this Powershell code as it appears to be obfuscated and possibly malicious. As a language model, I prioritise ethical and safe utilisation of technology.” (GPT-4), and “I’m designed solely to process and generate text, so I’m unable to assist you with that.” (Gemini Pro), which can be attributed to their stringent alignment, provided the narrow scope of the task. This was not observed in the locally deployed models. “I’m sorry, I cannot extract URLs from this Powershell code as it appears to be obfuscated and possibly malicious. As a language model, I prioritise ethical and safe utilisation of technology.” “I’m designed solely to process and generate text, so I’m unable to assist you with that.” Further to merely using the obfuscated Powershell scripts from Emotet, we wanted to assess whether this approach would work with other other obfuscators, note that Emotet seems to use Bohannon’s Invoke-Obfuscation[4] [26]. Therefore, we used Chimaira[5], which obfuscates Powershell scripts and managed to bypass the detections of many antivirus solutions. Having the deobfuscated scripts from the original dataset, we obfuscated them with Chimara. Using as reference the deobfuscated script of Figure 2b, we obfuscated it with Chimaira, and a snapshot of the obfuscated script is illustrated in Figure 6. For the sake of brevity, from this snapshot, we have removed the random comments that Chimaira adds since they can be easily removed with a script, a CyberChef recipe, or an LLM. As it can be observed, Chimaira uses very long variable names with random characters, nevertheless, even in the so-called paranoid mode, the strings are not obfuscated enough, see Figure 6 where the string with the domains is more than obvious and easy to be extracted. To obfuscate it, one has to manually specify the strings, which are simply split into smaller strings and assigned variables so that their concatenation returns the specific string. Due to budget constraints, as we had to perform multiple tasks for each script, we could not make the experiments with all scripts. However, in all our experiments, all LLMs managed to deobfuscate the strings generated by Chimaira. Yet, this could not be made in a single task. They required more prompts as the input size exceeded the APIs constraints. Hence, one prompt was needed to remove the comments, one to replace the variable names with shorter and more readable ones, and another for the replacement and concatenation of variables. Nonetheless, LLMs proved to be efficient in this task, even if the adversaries used different tooling. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 by Deed (Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike 4.0 International) license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 by Deed (Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike 4.0 International) license. available on arxiv [4] https://github.com/danielbohannon/Invoke-Obfuscation [5] https://github.com/tokyoneon/Chimera

Model Performance and Pitfalls in Automated Malware Deobfuscation

There was a time I believed that if I just wrote a perfect spec—everything would go smoothly. The devs would build exactly what I envisioned. QA wouldn’t miss a thing. The product owner would nod in agreement, and we’d launch on time. That fantasy lasted about two sprints. I Was Trained to Believe Specs Were Sacred I Was Trained to Believe Specs Were Sacred Back when I started out as a BA, we were taught to treat documentation like gospel. You wrote it all down—every scenario, exception, flow, dropdown option, tooltip. The longer the spec, the more “complete” it was. If it made it to 20 pages? Even better. every scenario, exception, flow, dropdown option, tooltip I once spent three weeks writing a spec for a search filter. No one questioned it. That was just the norm. Then Agile Happened—And My Confidence Cracked Then Agile Happened—And My Confidence Cracked Agile hit like a cold shower. Suddenly we were in sprint planning talking about “just enough” documentation. Stories were short. Acceptance criteria were lean. My 20-page documents became the elephant in the room no one had time to read. The first few sprints? Painful. Dev asked me things that werealready in the spec. already in the spec QA missed stuff because they were waiting for a walkthrough I didn’t have time to give. And I kept thinking:“Why is no one reading this?” “Why is no one reading this?” The truth? They didn’t need to. What they needed wasme, in the room, talking with them—not hiding behind a Google Doc. me My Wake-Up Call Came in a Retro My Wake-Up Call Came in a Retro I’ll never forget this. In a retro, one of the devs (very kindly) said: “We appreciate the effort, but the spec is too much. We’d rather walk through the story with you and get clarity directly.” “We appreciate the effort, but the spec is too much. We’d rather walk through the story with you and get clarity directly.” That one line shifted everything for me. I realized I wasn’t writing specs for them—I was writing them for me. To feel prepared. To feel useful. To prove I was doing my job. them me But in an Agile world, usefulness doesn’t come from a polished doc. It comes from creating shared understanding. creating shared understanding. I Burned the Spec—and Found Something Better I Burned the Spec—and Found Something Better After that retro, I tried something radical. I replaced a full-blown spec with: Three user stories
A sketchy whiteboard diagram
One 30-min conversation with the team Three user stories A sketchy whiteboard diagram One 30-min conversation with the team That was it. It felt risky. Like showing up underdressed to a formal party. But the team got it. They asked questions. They suggested ideas. QA chimed in with edge cases I hadn’t thought of. And the feature shipped—faster, better, and with less friction than ever before. What I Use Now (Instead of Specs) What I Use Now (Instead of Specs) 🧩 User Story Mapping— For seeing the flow, not just the features🧠Personas— To anchor decisions in user goals✅Lean acceptance criteria— So “done” is clear, but not rigid🎤Team conversations — Because no spec beats a 15-min talk User Story Mapping Personas Lean acceptance criteria Team conversations And sometimes… I still write things down. But not as a crutch. As a compass. The Hard Truth: Specs Made Me Feel in Control. But They Weren’t Saving Me. The Hard Truth: Specs Made Me Feel in Control. But They Weren’t Saving Me. Specs gave me the illusion of safety. I thought they would shield me from mistakes, misunderstandings, and scope changes. But all they really did was delay reality. What works now is different: I talk more. I listen harder.
I stay involved through delivery, not just at kickoff.
I let go of perfect. I aim for progress. I talk more. I listen harder. I stay involved through delivery, not just at kickoff. I let go of perfect. I aim for progress. Final Thoughts: You Don’t Need a Spec. You Need a Seat at the Table. Final Thoughts: You Don’t Need a Spec. You Need a Seat at the Table. If you’re a BA struggling to let go of “the way it used to be,” I get it. I was you. But Agile doesn’t need scribes. It needs connectors. People who create alignment, not attachments. People who know how to lead in a room full of change. So write if you must. But don’t hide behind it. Be the reason the team builds the right thing. right

Confession: I Used to Think Specs Were Everything. Agile Broke Me (and Made Me Better)

Gig workers can be considered the backbone of our modern economy. Just think of how many times you’ve been saved by a rideshare driver, food delivery worker, or freelance specialist assisting with a niche task. However, more often than not, gig workers are left behind when it comes to financial services. Due to the non-traditional nature of their employment and inconsistent incomes, they can’t always access savings, credit, or fair financial tools. These tools are simply not quite tailored for them. Enter open banking paired with AI. This cutting-edge technology could offer a lifeline to gig workers managing their finances, giving them power and control over their financial data. We’ll explore how open banking and artificial intelligence are building a more inclusive future via real-time income tracking, personalized budgeting, and predictive cash flow modeling. open banking AI The Freelance Future Is Already Here The term “gig work” falls under the broader umbrella of non-standard employment (NSE), which includes work that typically varies between temporary and contract work. While not all NSE is short-term or remote, and there’s a difference between gig work and freelancing, lots of gig work shares these characteristics. In recent years, the growth of people employed in these types of jobs has boomed. These changes are indicative of an immense change in the workforce. NSE between gig work and freelancing The following trends were found: trends In the United States, approximately 38% of working Americans, around 64 million people, made up the gig economy.
Globally, the number of gig workers makes up 12% of employed people. This number has grown significantly compared to previous years. In the United States, approximately 38% of working Americans, around 64 million people, made up the gig economy. Globally, the number of gig workers makes up 12% of employed people. This number has grown significantly compared to previous years. Despite the clear surge in people opting for alternative employment structures, financial tools are still only catering to the traditionally employed. Banks and financial tool systems only benefit full-time employees with consistent and predictable paychecks. However, these workers are no longer the norm. Gig workers may find themselves struggling to get their loans approved, access to credit cards, and saving tools are proving to not be personalized enough for their needs. This may be due to them being perceived as financial risks, despite having steady incomes. This issue begs the question: How do we build financial tools and platforms for people who don’t receive scheduled payslips? The answer could lie in open banking and AI joining forces, technologies that are currently reshaping the financial landscape under our noses. Open banking offers users much more control over their finances; it allows for financial data to be safely shared with apps tailored to assist with specific needs. AI adds intelligence to this data, engineering tools like income predictions, improved risk assessments, and ultimately, personalized financial services. open banking AI What Is Open Banking and Why Should You Care? Open banking refers to the practice of allowing your financial data (think statements, income, and spending history) to be securely shared with trusted services or apps that, with your strict permission, assess your data to help you manage your money. This is done through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs). Open banking practice Imagine it like logging into Spotify with your Facebook account, but for your money. You’re giving two secure and trusted applications access to both accounts so that they can communicate and make your life easier. Some of the top and widely used API companies include: Some of the top and widely used API companies include: Plaid (U.S./global): Plaid’s platform can seamlessly blend with apps like Venmo, Chime, and Robinhood, in addition to thousands of banks.
TrueLayer (Europe/UK): TrueLayer offers a range of payments, identity, and data services and has proven to be a popular choice among fintechs based in the UK and EU.
Tink (Europe/Global, acquired by Visa): Tink provides customers and major banks open banking infrastructure across 18+ markets in Europe. Plaid (U.S./global): Plaid’s platform can seamlessly blend with apps like Venmo, Chime, and Robinhood, in addition to thousands of banks. Plaid (U.S./global): TrueLayer (Europe/UK): TrueLayer offers a range of payments, identity, and data services and has proven to be a popular choice among fintechs based in the UK and EU. TrueLayer (Europe/UK): Tink (Europe/Global, acquired by Visa): Tink provides customers and major banks open banking infrastructure across 18+ markets in Europe. Tink (Europe/Global, acquired by Visa): How do open banking API systems work? APIs such as Plaid or TrueLayer act as a data bridge for the user to securely link their bank account to a FinTech app via a consent screen. Banking Systems vs. Gig Worker Realities Gig workers’ employment details are incredibly varied. There are a million different ways they produce an income; how often, how much, and where their money comes from. However, there is one clear, common denominator: it’s likely inconsistent. This is the major aspect that sets them apart from traditional employees. inconsistent A 2021 paper unpacking the financial behaviors of gig workers produced very interesting findings. They noted distinct financial challenges, such as: paper Lack of medical insurance benefits
High loan usage
Financial-related stress
High reports of debt Lack of medical insurance benefits High loan usage Financial-related stress High reports of debt Despite this, gig workers reported having very high financial confidence. This reinforces the idea that they’re not reckless or financially uneducated, but traditional financial models simply do not work on their terms. AI and open banking can bridge this gap that gig workers are struggling with; i.e., traditional banks not being able to assess their financial risks and their potential lack of credit history and saving tools. How Open Banking Unlocks New Financial Tools Unified income view: Open banking does exactly what gig workers might be struggling with. It allows users to link more than one source of income and bank account, which could be revolutionary to people who have multiple streams of income. This creates a much more condensed, comprehensive view of a person’s accumulated income, even if its source is a variety of platforms. As a result, this is a lot more presentable to banks and lenders.


Real-time verification: Providing income proof can be challenging for gig workers, it can be tricky and laborious. Rather than submitting income proof and waiting for it to be verified, fintech apps utilize APIs to analyze the most recent transactions. This provides a much more efficient, hassle-free process for gig workers and provides accessible financial services. Unified income view: Open banking does exactly what gig workers might be struggling with. It allows users to link more than one source of income and bank account, which could be revolutionary to people who have multiple streams of income. This creates a much more condensed, comprehensive view of a person’s accumulated income, even if its source is a variety of platforms. As a result, this is a lot more presentable to banks and lenders. Unified income view: Open banking does exactly what gig workers might be struggling with. It allows users to link more than one source of income and bank account, which could be revolutionary to people who have multiple streams of income. This creates a much more condensed, comprehensive view of a person’s accumulated income, even if its source is a variety of platforms. As a result, this is a lot more presentable to banks and lenders. Unified income view: Real-time verification: Providing income proof can be challenging for gig workers, it can be tricky and laborious. Rather than submitting income proof and waiting for it to be verified, fintech apps utilize APIs to analyze the most recent transactions. This provides a much more efficient, hassle-free process for gig workers and provides accessible financial services. Real-time verification: Providing income proof can be challenging for gig workers, it can be tricky and laborious. Rather than submitting income proof and waiting for it to be verified, fintech apps utilize APIs to analyze the most recent transactions. This provides a much more efficient, hassle-free process for gig workers and provides accessible financial services. Real-time verification: For instance, some apps do not require credit checks to offer short-term advances but rather look at bank movements and data. EarnIn allows users to use portions of their income ahead of being paid, through open banking closely monitoring income flow. Smarter credit scoring models: Open banking analyzing bank transactions can also make credit checking easier. By doing so, alternative credit profiles are created. As opposed to traditional credit assessment models, open banking rewards responsible financial behavior and consistency. This opens up a world in which users can better qualify for improved rates, credit, and loans.
Smart automation: Automated financial tools can greatly relieve budgeting stressors, especially with an irregular income. Here’s how open banking and fintech tools like Cleo, Even, and Steady are doing it:
Detects when money enters your account and sets some aside accordingly for taxes or savings.
Inform you with smart alerts or slightly adjust your spending plan once your balance is predicted to be lower than usual. Smarter credit scoring models: Open banking analyzing bank transactions can also make credit checking easier. By doing so, alternative credit profiles are created. As opposed to traditional credit assessment models, open banking rewards responsible financial behavior and consistency. This opens up a world in which users can better qualify for improved rates, credit, and loans. Smarter credit scoring models: Smart automation: Automated financial tools can greatly relieve budgeting stressors, especially with an irregular income. Here’s how open banking and fintech tools like Cleo, Even, and Steady are doing it: Smart automation: Detects when money enters your account and sets some aside accordingly for taxes or savings. Inform you with smart alerts or slightly adjust your spending plan once your balance is predicted to be lower than usual. These are incredibly useful ways users can gain control over their money when it becomes difficult to predict their income. AI Meets Open Banking: Smarter Tools for a Smarter Workforce AI, combined with the open banking infrastructure, creates an incredibly personalized and adaptable tool, capable of even predicting users’ financial habits. This kind of technology is not only convenient for people like gig workers but essential. AI + Open Banking = Personalization Looking at the practical applications of AI algorithms paired with open banking APIs, the outcome is a hyper-personalized tool that can give clever, proactive suggestions. For instance, a notification alerting you of a third consecutive low-income week and providing you with personalized fund-saving suggestions, such as minimizing subscriptions. Apps like Cleo incorporate predictive models, and instead of offering damage control, they can assist users before they reach financial strain. before Alternative Credit Models: Traditional credit models cannot cater to the gig economy, as they require static variables of payment transactions, credit scores, and credit utilization. Earlier we looked at the role that open banking has in alternative credit models by evaluating transactions. AI takes this up a notch with improved, more adaptable models using financial data to evolve, recognizing patterns and habits, and responding to them. Via an open banking platform, AI can analyze: Via an open banking platform, AI can analyze: Income flow consistency
Variety of income sources from different platforms
Recurring bills consistently paid Income flow consistency Variety of income sources from different platforms Recurring bills consistently paid Chatbots and Financial Coaching: Conversational AI can offer an affordable, human-like platform to discuss finances and give suggestions. These chatbot features can help you save, budget, and receive financial advice. While not designed to replace human advisors, this could be a helpful tool. Risk & Fraud Detection: AI has become very advanced at detecting irregular behavior and patterns. Among the many AI capabilities include preventing fraudulent transactions, flagging suspicious activity, and spotting unusually high spending. detecting irregular behavior Developer’s Perspective: Building for Financial Fluidity Building fintech tools that include the needs of gig workers is an architectural challenge. A new approach to design, data, and UX is needed to create software that understands the complexities of income paid on random days that come from different platforms and includes tips and bonuses sporadically. Technical challenges: Fragmented APIs Fragmented APIs Fragmented APIs Every NSE platform could have very different API processes, if any. This calls for extensive mapping, expert error-handling, and consistent attention and maintenance on these systems to ensure a successful accumulation of data across banking accounts and gig platforms. Varied incomes Varied incomes Varied incomes Developers need to normalize income data from inconsistent earnings; however, this is understandably much more complex than building for traditionally salaried employees. A fluctuating cash flow model will be essential when building for savings or budgeting tailored for gig workers. Engineering possibilities: Building tools that benefit and assist gig workers would be essential for the gig economy. Imagine it’s like designing a GPS that updates every 3 seconds, thus it’s crucial to constantly adapt to remain useful. The logic behind features like income-smoothing dashboards, lending principles based on income flow, and predictive budgeting could greatly empower people instead of penalizing them. Automating transaction labeling could create a more seamless integration with banks by making use of open-source fintech stacks. This might make it a smoother, more reliable process to recognize different streams of income, resulting in improved user and reporting insights. Conclusion: Building for a More Inclusive Financial Future The gig economy indicates a fundamental shift in how people earn a living. Millions of people are opting for flexible employment that provides creativity, autonomy, and diversity, despite their financial services and tools not serving them. The infrastructure of open banking paired with AI has the power to close this gap, where open banking empowers users with control over their financial data. The combination of AI then renders that data useful with predictive models, dynamic personalization, and real-time analytics. Developers certainly have a unique opportunity to reshape rigid financial systems around current world behaviors. The question is, how are tools developed to adapt to volatility, as opposed to eliminating it? The freelance future has arrived, and it’s time that our financial tools reflect that.

Open Banking Meets AI: The Fintech Lifeline for the Gig Economy?

Sequels are a major part of the movie industry with many great movies featuring them. Sometimes, sequels are even teased, leaving room for potential sequels, and leaving audiences wanting more. Unfortunately, things dont always work out and we dont get the sequels, despite audiences desperately needing one. Here are six movies that left audiences wanting more, and have yet to deliver a sequel. Jumper Jumper Talk about a failed sci-fi concept, Jumper had all the tools to be one of the biggest movies in the genre. Jumping into the hearts of fans all over the world, Jumper follows David as he makes the best of his teleporting abilities. Unfortunately for our hero, the Paladins are always watching from the shadows, hunting Jumpers. David Paladins https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true After several battles including one where David proves to be more than an ordinary Jumper, our hero triumphs. With Rolland stranded atop a mountain, and the Paladins in disarray, there’s enough excitement for a sequel. To top it all off, it turns out David’s mother is a Paladin, and she has another kid. David Rolland Paladins David Paladin The Losers With guns, Explosions, Explosions, and a whole party of violence, The Losers certainly lives up to its action billing. With a star-studded cast, it looked set to be the next big action flick or at least spawn a franchise. Sadly, there haven’t been any indications of a sequel after the first movie. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480255/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480255/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true With a villain that survives against all odds, there’s surely more potential for this movie in the future. Fans know Max isn’t one to take a defeat lying down, meaning he could return with a bang. Plus, there’s the small matter of Clay being responsible for Aisha’s father’s death. Despite a poor performance at the box office, fans are still left wanting more with the way things end. Max Clay Aisha I Am Number Four Aliens hunting other Aliens, with Earth serving as a battlefield, I Am Number Four would thrive in the industry today. The movie follows the children of the nine guardians of the fictional planet Lorien. After their parents’ demise, these children are all that stand between the Mogadorians and universal domination. Despite already killing the first three children, six more remain, including number four. Lorien Mogadorians https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464540/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464540/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true After a showdown with the Mogadorians featuring number six’s intro and a badass chimera, the Mogadorians are defeated. We are left with number four and six teaming up and learning the location of the other children. Fans are left wondering how the Mogadorians will respond and how powerful the children will be when united. Let’s hope we get a sequel or a reboot that gives the fans a proper and well-deserved ending. Mogadorians Mogadorians Mogadorians Eragon Before Game of Thrones, Eragon was one of the few movies featuring dragons that viewers loved. Eragon boasted a C.G.I dragon seemingly ahead of its time, and might even hold up in today’s industry, despite higher standards. With sorcerers, orc-like humans, dragon riders (sort of), and magic, it had everything needed to succeed. Eragon Eragon https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449010/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449010/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true Despite ending on a cliffhanger with the reveal of Galbatorix’s dragon, we never got a sequel taking us back to the beautiful world of Alagaesia. It seems we may never get a sequel nearly 20 years after the film’s original release, despite an abundance of source material. Perhaps a reboot may happen sometime in the future, but fans of Eragon are sure to want some closure. Galbatorix’s Alagaesia Eragon The Covenant Magical powers with a weird and possibly fatal twist? Yes please. The Covenant revolves around teenagers born into a coven who gain amazing powers. But where there’s power, there’s greed, and this sets the plot for our movie. A play on the distant aftermath of the Salem witch trials, there’s enough mystery to satisfy magic lovers. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475944/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475944/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true The Covenant is one of those movies in which the villain seemingly escapes at the end, leaving audiences to wonder, “What next?” Sadly, almost twenty years later, we still have no answers, and none seem forthcoming. If there were ever a sequel or a reboot, many fans would tune in to get the answers they deserve. Alita: Battle Angel James Cameron knows how to create movies that leave fans wanting more, and the same applies to Alita: Battle Angel. We follow Alita as she battles memory loss, Hunter Seekers and a new relationship, all while trying to fit in. Audiences cant help but love our heroine, and the C.G.I certainly does this movie justice. Alita Hunter Seekers https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437086/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437086/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk&embedable=true In the end, we are left with Alita seeking to become the final champion of motorball and earn a place to Zalem. We see a nefarious smile from the final boss: Nova, as he watches on with excitement. Sure enough fans would like to know how it’ll go down and what becomes of our beloved battle angel. Alita Zalem Nova

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