Everything about networks and networkmodels, Aswell as companies who use these networks.

Implications of Open Banking for the Business Model of Banks 

In order to implement Open Banking, the European Union has been pursuing a regulatory-driven approach with PSD2 since 2018. In contrast, Switzerland is currently one of the few countries like the United States, Argentina, South Africa, and China to pursue a market-driven approach. However, last December, the Swiss Federal Council addressed Swiss financial institutions with a clear message and wants to accelerate developments around Open Banking. The first part of this three-part blog post series presents the impact of Open Banking on the business model of Swiss universal banks.

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This was the Open Banking Summit 2023

After the successful Summit 2022, the doors opened again on August 24th at Google in Zurich for this year’s Open Banking Summit 2023. With over 100 participants and top-class speakers, the OpenBankingProject once again proved to be one of the enterprise networks in the context of Open Banking. This blog post summarizes the content of the Open Banking Summit 2023.

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Research Area Distributed Ledger Technology

The Competence Center Ecosystems of the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen develops solutions for relevant problems from practice. In the context of this blog post, the overall research goal of the re-search area Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is presented. This research goal is to develop a frame-work that demonstrates and supports the methodological approach of DLT implementations to enable companies to adequately address relevant requirements of the implementation process of a DLT.

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Research Area Business Ecosystems: Presentation of the current research project: Conceptualizing the accumulation of value (value capture) through a framework

Within the Competence Center Ecosystems of the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen we develop solutions for relevant problems from practice. For this purpose, we use scientific methods within the framework of a consortium research project. This paper gives an insight into the current research project in the research area Busi-ness Ecosystems. Here, a framework for conceptualizing the accumulation of value (value capture) is developed.

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The potential and development of data spaces

Today, companies and individuals alike generate, process and use an immense amount of data, which, according to estimates, will continue to grow worldwide from 64.2 zettabytes in 2020 to an estimated 180 zettabytes in 2025. However, then as now, the global data economy is dominated by individual companies, the so-called BigTechs such as Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. One way to realize data exchange and use apart from the monopolistic BigTechs is based on the concept of trusted data spaces. But what exactly are data spaces and how do they work? This blog post addresses this question and shows a possible target picture for data spaces in Switzerland from the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen.

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Trends, trends, trends – nothing is as constant as change

The world is shaped by various trends, first and foremost megatrends. Megatrends describe complex dynamics of change that shape society for more than ten years. They can be used to make the complexity of change more understandable. Megatrends affect all levels of society and thus influence companies, institutions and individuals. It is essential for companies to analyze the opportunities & risks associated with the trends at an early stage. This blog post presents the selected megatrends of health and sustainability as well as the associated macro and micro trends.

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Collaborative value creation in digital ecosystems: Success factors using the example of a blockchain-based tokenization platform 

Nearly all companies today operate in ecosystems. Traditional business networks are giving way to this new value creation model, in which multiple organizations collaborate to more effectively meet the needs of customers. This shift to ecosystem-based value creation requires efficient coordination and the use of technology. In this regard, an innovative enabler for the establishment of digital ecosystems is blockchain. But what are the capabilities to participate as an actor in these new platforms? In this paper, we will take a closer look at these platforms using an existing example and derive initial insights for success factors in shared value creation.

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Development of Business Ecosystems in the DACH Region and the Potential of “Digital Files” as a Starting Point for Integrated Services

For the past four years, the Ecosystems Competence Center has been regularly investigating which business ecosystems are emerging and developing in the DACH region. This ecosystem radar is supplemented by selected international business ecosystems. A fundamental prerequisite for offering customers integrated solutions through various partners in a Business Ecosystem is the concept of the “digital file”. By this we mean a collection of relevant data related to a specific object on which these solutions focus. Such digital files, e.g. around the object house or car, are currently emerging in all Business Ecosystem areas we observe. This blog post describes the developments of selected Business Ecosystems as well as approaches of digital files.

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Tokenization – Potentials, Challenges and Use Cases in the Environment of the Financial Industry – Part 2

Tokens describe digital representations of rights and obligations associated with valuable assets. For financial institutions, tokenization of value offers promising use cases starting with direct investment in SMEs, access to emotional assets, and expanding their own service delivery to customers. These use cases demonstrate that the use of blockchain technology to map tokenized value can open up new investment opportunities for customers, increase customer loyalty, or jointly exploit additional opportunities.

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Leadership in Swiss Banks

How are leadership styles developing in Swiss banks – basically, Lewin’s traditional leadership styles such as authoritarian/patriarchal, cooperative, etc. are well known. Nowadays, a distinction can also be made between transactional and transformational leadership. This article explains how these leadership styles differ from each other and why the leadership styles in banks are changing towards agile organizational forms.

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Business Ecosystems – Overrated or a real opportunity for financial services providers?

A few years ago, the topic of “business ecosystems” seemed to be the panacea for financial services institutions – everything “HAD” to be or become an ecosystem. Now, the yield curve is turning and earnings from maturity transformation are bubbling up again. So, all over with the “ecosystem”? In addition to answering this question, this blog post highlights aspects to be considered by organizations to successfully leverage the Business Ecosystems phenomenon.

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Development of core banking systems in Switzerland  

In 2017/2018, the Core Banking Radar examined the eight most relevant core banking systems for Switzerland using a comprehensive methodology. In 2022/2023, the interviews with representatives of these established systems in Switzerland were repeated in order to find out how the systems have developed. This blog post highlights the four overarching activities that core banking systems have been engaged in over the past few years.

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Asymmetric cryptography and digital signatures – Part 2

The first part of this blog series introduced the concept of symmetric cryptography, which can en-sure the confidentiality of data to be exchanged. Symmetric cryptography is based on the funda-mental assumption that the key used, which is to be kept secret, must be transmitted between the communication partners via a secure channel, since otherwise third parties with knowledge of the key can access the ciphertext. Accordingly, with the help of symmetric cryptography, the problem of secret message transmission is reduced to secret key transmission only. To get around this prob-lem, this second part of the blog series presents an introduction to the concept of asymmetric cryp-tography.

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Trend Impact Radar 2023: New Trends for the Financial Industry – Part 2

The Competence Center Ecosystems regularly identifies and analyzes the most important trends impacting financial institutions and financial-related service providers. In doing so, we address the development of megatrends, macrotrends and microtrends as well as their impact on the financial industry. As a follow-up to our last blog, which focused on the megatrends and macrotrends we identified as newly relevant to the financial industry in our last internal update, today I would like to present a selection of related microtrends that relate to the topics of data, customer, employees and corporate responsibility.

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Trend Impact Radar 2023: New Trends for the Financial Industry

The Competence Center Ecosystems regularly identifies and analyzes the most important trends impacting financial institutions and financial-related service providers. In doing so, we address both the development of megatrends, macrotrends and microtrends as well as their impact on the financial industry. Today, I would like to share the four mega and macro trends that we have newly identified as relevant to the financial industry in our latest internal update: Web 3.0, AR & VR / Metaverse, Generation without Borders / Permanent Beta and Standards in Telecommunications.

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How Does It Benefit Us to View Business Ecosystems as Complex Adaptive Systems?

Our longterm goal at CC Ecosystems is to assess ecosystem processes and their impacts in a valid way that can be quantified and measured. To do this, however, we first need a suitable analytical framework: We need to delimit our object of study in such a way that its complexity is reduced to a manageable level, but at the same time no relevant features of an ecosystem are excluded from the study. Natural sciences use the theory of complex adaptive systems (CAS) to study systems that consist of interconnected elements and have adaptive capabilities in the form of adaptation and learning. In order to find out whether an ecosystem can really be considered as a CAS, we provide a comparison of the definitions and the derived properties of an ecosystem and the CAS.

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Insights from the Open Banking Summit 2022

“Financial Industry Meets BigTech”: On the 25th of August 2022, the third Open Banking Summit opened its doors in the Google event rooms in Zurich. The OpenBankingProject.ch organized this event for the third time and once again provided a stimulating get-together on the topic of open banking. The event featured national and international success stories, and the subsequent panel discussion reflected on and discussed selected topics and questions posed by the audience. Once again this year, around 120 decision-makers from the Swiss financial sector gathered to learn about current developments and to network over the subsequent aperitif.

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Core Banking Radar – “Neo Core Banking Systems and their importance for the IT Architecture of the future”

Various trends, such as an increased focus on customer interaction and embedded banking, will shape the bank of the future. To provide services along the entire “customer journey”, banks are increasingly dependent on networking with other industries. The expansion of partnerships in the ecosystem goes hand in hand with the promotion of integration capabilities via APIs and steady investment in the banking architecture. The latest Core Banking Radar article examines the system architecture of the bank of the future and, in this context, compares the four neo-core banking systems examined in earlier publications of this series.

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DeFi 2.0

Since DeFi Summer 2020, DeFi applications have become a significant trend in the blockchain industry. However, vulnerabilities of DeFi applications have also been identified over the past 24 months. The third and final part of our series “Decentralized Finance – a Hype, a Threat or an Opportunity for Regulated Financial Institutions?” takes a closer look at recent developments in the DeFi sector (DeFi 2.0) and how they address well-known challenges in the context of DeFi, such as the potential for errors when setting up smart contracts, the lack of incentive structures for investors, or the requirements for investors’ technical and professional knowledge, without compromising the strengths of DeFi applications.

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Race for the Pole Position in the Metaverse – Business Opportunities for Banks

In the media, Meta (formerly Facebook) is positioning itself very strongly as the future metaverse, and it seems as if Meta is building the “one” metaverse. This impression is deceptive. In this article, we will talk about what a metaverse is, which competitors are currently building metaverses, and what opportunities they open up for banks.

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Towards an Application-Oriented Understanding of Business Ecosystems in a Management Context

The term “business ecosystems” is not only a term used by the Competence Center Ecosystems of the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen (CC Ecosystems), but it also attracts a large number of publications in the broader business and academic community. But what does it describe in concrete terms and what basic definition do we refer to when we talk about the development of business models within business ecosystems and the accumulation of “value” among individual actors (value capture)? In what follows, I first provide an overview of various aspects of ecosystem research. Subsequently, the focus will be on the definition of ecosystems as a specific structure of the organization of interaction in a network. Finally, implications for the work in the Competence Center Ecosystems are described.

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Opportunities & Challenges for Banks in the Context of Decentralized Finance

The term decentralized finance (DeFi) refers to a decentralized, blockchain-based architecture for processing financial transactions without intermediaries. we will show in this article why offering access to digital assets and DeFi business models is worthwhile for financial institutions and what challenges they have to overcome in order to provide such an offering to their customers. Based on practical examples, positioning possibilities for regulated institutions will be presented as well as concrete opportunities and challenges.

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9 Steps to Unlocking Business Ecosystems

The development of a business ecosystem promises the opportunity to provide existing customers with integrated services through cooperation, in some cases across industries, and to gain access to new customer groups. However, building a business ecosystem by yourself is a challenging task, as there are many parties to orchestrate around a value proposition that is attractive to all participants. To increase the chances of success for such a project, it is worth taking a structured approach that not only helps with the design of a promising solution, but also with discovering potential stumbling blocks as early as possible and, at best, avoiding them. One such approach, which is already used by several banks in German-speaking countries, is presented in this article.

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Federated Learning – Efficient Machine Learning That Respects Privacy?

In the financial industry, customers expect high standards with regard to data protection and the integrity of their own data. Nevertheless, from the perspective of value creation, it is essential for banks to evaluate customer data using statistical methods and algorithms. Banks are thus caught in a conflict between maintaining data privacy and enforcing their own business model. To address this problem, the concept of “federated learning” has become established on the market in recent years, in which the data used for model training is always stored decentrally and the models are trained decentrally.

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What Exactly Is “Decentralized Finance”?

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has been one of the dominant trends in digital assets at least since the DeFi summer 2020. Since the summer of 2020, the digital assets community’s gaze has turned towards the possibilities of a decentralized financial ecosystem, DeFi applications have become highly popular and the prices of corresponding tokens have multiplied. Why is DeFi seen as having such great potential and what does this mean for regulated financial institutions? In the next three blogposts, I will outline these and other questions, show different perspectives and provide an outlook on the opportunities for regulated financial institutions in the context of DeFi. To get started, this blog post will outline the functionalities of DeFi applications, present selected use cases, and highlight opportunities and risks in this context.

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