This open access Pivot demonstrates how a variety of technologies act as innovation catalysts within the banking and financial services sector. Traditional banks and financial services are under increasing competition from global IT companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon and PayPal whilst facing pressure from investors to reduce costs, increase agility and improve customer retention. Technologies such as blockchain, cloud computing, mobile technologies, big data analytics and social media therefore have perhaps more potential in this industry and area of business than any other. This book defines a fintech ecosystem for the 21st century, providing a state-of-the art review of current literature, suggesting avenues for new research and offering perspectives from business, technology and industry.

The blockchain is a distributed ledger that stores information in a way that makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the system to be altered, hacked, or manipulated. A distributed ledger is what a blockchain is. This ledger copies and distributes transactions throughout the network of computers that are part of the blockchain. A data structure known as blockchain has the potential to take the shape of an expanding list of information blocks. Because the knowledge blocks are interconnected, more recent blocks cannot be withdrawn or changed after they have been added. The decentralized digital currency Bitcoin relies on the blockchain technology for its operations. A distributed database that contains records of all transactions or digital activities that have been carried out and shared among parties that are participating is called a blockchain. Each transaction is checked by the system's users who make up the bulk of its members. It includes each and every record of each transaction in its entirety. The most widely used example of a blockchain technology is the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin. In 2008, a person or group of people going by the name "Satoshi Nakamoto" issued a white paper titled "BitCoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system." This was the first time that the Blockchain Technology was brought to public attention. This new technology, known as blockchain, logs transactions in a digital ledger that is shared across the network. Because of this, the ledger cannot be altered in any way. Transactions involving anything of value, like as real estate, automobiles, and so on, may be recorded on the blockchain. Bitcoin is perhaps the most well-known application of Blockchain technology. Bitcoin is a form of cryptocurrency that may be used for the purchase and sale of digital assets over the internet. For two parties to successfully carry out transactions via the internet, Bitcoin relies on cryptographic evidence rather than the confidence of a third party. A unique cryptographic signature is used to secure each transaction.

This book discusses the various open issues of blockchain technology, such as the efficiency of blockchain in different domains of digital cryptocurrency, smart contracts, smart education system, smart cities, cloud identity and access, safeguard to cybersecurity and health care. For the first time in human history, people across the world can trust each other and transact over a large peer-to-peer networks without any central authority. This proves that, trust can be built not only by centralized institution but also by protocols and cryptographic mechanisms. The potential and collaboration between organizations and individuals within peer networks make it possible to potentially move to a global collaborative network without centralization. Blockchain is a complex social, economic and technological phenomenon. This questions what the established terminologies of the modern world like currency, trust, economics and exchange would mean. To make any sense, one needs to realize how much insightful and potential it is in the context and the way it is technically developed. Due to rapid changes in accessing the documents through online transactions and transferring the currency online, many previously used methods are proving insufficient and not secure to solve the problem which arises in the safe and hassle-free transaction. Nowadays, the world changes rapidly, and a transition flow is also seen in Business Process Management (BPM). The traditional Business Process Management holds good establishment last one to two decades, but, the internal workflow confined in a single organization. They do not manage the workflow process and information across organizations. If they do so, again fall in the same trap as the control transfers to the third party that is centralized server and it leads to tampering the data, and single point of failure. To address these issues, this book highlights a number of unique problems and effective solutions that reflects the state-of-the art in blockchain Technology. This book explores new experiments and yields promising solutions to the current challenges of blockchain technology. This book is intended for the researchers, academicians, faculties, scientists, blockchain specialists, business management and software industry professionals who will find it beneficial for their research work and set new ideas in the field of blockchain. This book caters research work in many fields of blockchain engineering, and it provides an in-depth knowledge of the fields covered.

This book addresses main issues concerned with the future learning, learning and academic analytics, virtual world and smart user interface, and mobile learning. This book gathers the newest research results of smart learning environments from the aspects of learning, pedagogies, and technologies in learning. It examines the advances in technology development and changes in the field of education that has been affecting and reshaping the learning environment. Then, it proposes that under the changed technological situations, smart learning systems, no matter what platforms (i.e., personal computers, smart phones, and tablets) they are running at, should be aware of the preferences and needs that their users (i.e., the learners and teachers) have, be capable of providing their users with the most appropriate services, helps to enhance the users' learning experiences, and to make the learning efficient.

Handbook of Blockchain, Digital Finance, and Inclusion, Volume 1: Cryptocurrency, FinTech, InsurTech, and Regulation explores recent advances in digital banking and cryptocurrency, emphasizing mobile technology and evolving uses of cryptocurrencies as financial assets. Contributors go beyond summaries of standard models to describe new banking business models that will be sustainable and will likely dictate the future of finance. The volume not only emphasizes the financial opportunities made possible by digital banking, such as financial inclusion and impact investing, but it also looks at engineering theories and developments that encourage innovation. Its ability to illuminate present potential and future possibilities make it a unique contribution to the literature. - Explores recent advances in digital banking and cryptocurrency, emphasizing mobile technology and evolving uses of cryptocurrencies as financial assets - Explains the practical consequences of both technologies and economics to readers who want to learn about subjects related to their specialties - Encompasses alternative finance, financial inclusion, impact investing, decentralized consensus ledger and applied cryptography - Provides the only advanced methodical summary of these subjects available today

Learn all about blockchain and its applications in cryptocurrency, healthcare, Internet of Things, finance, decentralized organizations, and more. Featuring case studies and practical insights, this book covers a unique mix of topics and offers insight into how to overcome hurdles that arise as the market and consumers grow accustomed to blockchain-based organizations and services. The book is divided into three major sections. The first section provides a historical background to blockchain technology. You will start with a historical context to financial capital markets when Bitcoin was invented, followed by mining protocols, the need for consensus, hardware mining, etc. Next, a formal introduction to blockchain is provided covering transaction workflow, role of decentralized network, and payment verification. Then, we dive deep into a different implementation of a blockchain: Ethereum. The main technical features, such as Ethereum Virtual Machine, are presented along with the smart contract programming language, Solidity. In this second section, you will look at some modern use cases for blockchain from a decentralized autonomous organization, high-performance computing in Ethereum and off-grid computations, and healthcare and scientific discovery. The final section of the book looks toward the future of blockchain. This is followed by chapters covering the rise of consortia in the blockchain world, the Hyperledger project, particularly the updates since 2018, and a chapter on educational blockchain games. This is followed by updates to EOS.IO, Chain Core, and Quorum, ICOs and a look at the major changes to financial markets brought about by blockchain and decentralized networks. What You Will Learn Get an overview of the popular games employed to teach the basic concepts of blockchain and decentralized networks Be familiar with the rise of blockchain consortiums as well as updates to Hyperledger Project, 2020 Find out about cloud blockchains, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Webservices, and how to set up test environments Study machine learning integration in the blockchain and the role of smart contracts Who This Book Is For Blockchain developers interested in keeping up with the newest updates and students looking for a broad overview of this vast ecosystem, plus business executives who want to make informed product decisions about including blockchain as well as policy makers who want a better understanding of the current use cases

This exciting book explores the past, present and future of IoT, presenting the most prominent technologies that comprise IoT applications, including cloud computing, edge computing, embedded computing, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain and cybersecurity. A comprehensive description of the full range of the building blocks that comprise emerging IoT systems and applications is provided, while illustrating the evolution of IoT systems from the legacy small scale sensor systems and wireless sensor networks, to today’s large scale IoT deployments that comprise millions of connected devices in the cloud and smart objects with (semi)autonomous behavior. It also provides an outlook for the future evolution of IoT systems, based on their blending with AI and the use of emerging technologies like blockchain for massively decentralized applications. The full spectrum of technologies that are closely associated with the term IoT since its introduction are explored. The book also highlights the main challenges that are associated with the development and deployment of IoT applications at scale, including network connectivity, security, and interoperability challenges. First tech sensors, wireless sensor networks and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are covered. Machine learning, big data and security issues are also explored.