Author: Hans W. Winterhoff

Smart cities; they were a popular term that has since lost a bit of its steam among the general public, and yet, with the dramatic reduction of Internet-of-Things (IoT) prices last decade, the smart city initiative is now a gleam in many government’s eyes. According to the International Data Corporation, global smart city spending is set to accelerate from US$81 billion in 2018 to US$158 billion by 2022. The European Union (EU) has devoted constant efforts to devising a strategy for achieving “smart” urban growth for its metropolitan city-regions and has developed a range of programs under its Digital Single…

Regtech, a term that refers to the use of technology such as advanced analytics, robotic process automation, cognitive computing and cloud computing, to help financial services firms get better at dealing with regulation, is one of the fastest-growing segments of fintech and financial innovation. In our recent report, we forecast that regtech spending by 2022 will reach US$76 billion from US$10.6 billion in 2017 and that by 2020 RegTech is expected to make up 34% of all regulatory spendings. In recent years, regtech has emerged as a key element of financial institutions’ drive towards digital transformation. And there are many…

Insurance companies have been slow to adapt to a digital-first approach. In an increasingly digital world, many insurers are put in a tough spot as they struggle to keep up with the demands of a new generation of consumers. Taking advantage of the incumbents’ inability to meet these needs, we are seeing a surge of insurtech startups stepping in to seize the market. Fighting off these agile startups have proved to be difficult with the shackles of bureaucracy and legacy systems. Ping An, however, is one of the few outliers in this scenario. A relatively young player with just over…