Emerging trends in ICT and Business

Question: Discuss about the Emerging trends in ICT and Business. Answer: Introduction In this assignment, a report has been developed to describe the importance of emerging technologies in business. This report is written for the investors of a start-up (Moula), for which this new payment technology will be the core business. The company will be using a new payment technology named Stripe as a new opportunity to expand its business. This international payment option will help them to increase their international business. Background As Wang and Wang (2013) stated that, digital currency-related technologies started to rise during Global Financial Crisis 2007-2008. During this time period due to distrust of banks Bitcoin and various other digital currencies are developed. It has affected Australia as well. New local payment start-ups are developing in Australia. In addition, the number of foreign payment firms is also increasing in the country (Startupsmart 2016). Moula is a start-up business located in Melbourne CBD. The founders of the company are Piers Lower, Andrew Watt, and Aris Allgos (Moula 2016). The company provides business loans up to $100, 000. It provides fast approval on loans based on the business transaction data. The company offers unsecured working capital loans through its website from $ 1000 to $ 20,000 at a flat 1% interest rate (Fintechmelbourne 2016). However, with the entrance of global players such as PayPal, it has become a challenge for the company to maintain its steady growth rate. Now, Moula wants to use non-eBay e-commerce and accounting software and payment platforms to offer their loans. For this reason, the company is thinking to use a new payment technology Stripe as a core business strategy. Stripe will also provide a source of data that Moula can use to make the credit checks. The Strip is an online payment-processing platform (Stripe 2016). It is renowned for its simplicity and adoption in the web communit y. Web developers of Moula can take advantage of stripes payment processing platform and expand their business operations. Results The implementation of new payment technology Stripe will provide some exclusive features for the organization. They are mentioned below: Built for different developers It is available in different development platforms such as Curl, Ruby, Python, PHP, and Java (Afr 2014). It provides robust and clean APIs that let the company Moula to develop payment options. Figure 1: Platforms available for Stripe (Source: Created by Author) Powerful toolkit It will provide the company various payment toolkits such as flexible billing periods, coupons, user trails and unlimited subscription options (Fintechmelbourne 2016). All these features will make Moula more attractive to its customers. Perfectly scaled Strip is designed taking in mind about a whole company. Adaptation of Strip will make the payment options run smoothly for the company. Features like accounting integration, proven fraud protection, simplified operation, and battle-tested system will make Moula more efficient and attractive (Stripe 2016). Figure 2: Scaling options of the New Payment Method (Source: Created by Author) High security Strip provides seamless security. It is trusted by thousands of small and large business organizations to power up commerce for their business. Strip is certified to PCI service provider level 1. It is the most stringent level of certification. It provides an extra layer of security for the account of customers for Moula by enabling two-factor authentication. Figure 3: Features of the New Payment Option Stripe (Source: Created by Author) It is not only useful for the business but also for customers. Previously developers of Moula have to set up an independent server to validate each purchase of their customers. Now customers just have to follow three simple steps to get a loan from Moula. They are mentioned below: Get a credit card token from Stripe Charge the card using Stripe token Get loan from Moula Figure 4: Steps to use the new payment option (Source: Created by Author) Recommendations However, with the increase of technology usage, issues like frauds and piracy are also increasing rapidly. For this reason, the company Moula needs to take some steps to improve security for its online payment technology. They are mentioned below: Identification and verification measures It will allow Moula to recognize its customers properly. This information is important for the start-up business as it helps to develop a better business relationship. It will also help the company to identify whether a customer is connected with multiple accounts or not (stripe cards or cash vouchers). It also helps to create a paper trail for the law enforcement in case of any scam or fraud. IP address of customers has to be a part of the identification data collected by the company. It will help to minimize the potential for a customer to handle multiple accounts. Effective monitoring system It can become a very effective tool to mitigate the crime risk for the New Payment Method (NPM). In order to develop effective monitoring system, the company must needs to identify: Suspicious or unusual transactions Discrepancies for instance between provided customer information and the IP address When the same account is used by multiple consumers Cases where the same consumer opens multiple accounts Balance and transaction limits Limiting the balance and transaction amounts can prevent criminals from having access to a large amount of money for illegal reasons. The company has to identify the needs of each customer before providing a loan to them. Methods of funding Risks related to online payment can be mitigated if Moula starts to use CDD measures of Stripe. They can be previously identified bank accounts, debit or credit cards or any other personalized payment methods. The company also needs to restrict the number of parties involved in the founding process. It will limit the possibility of third party founding. Conclusion In this report, it has been described that the new start-up named Moula can use a new payment option as its core business strategy. This new payment option is Stripe. This NPM is known for is simplicity and adoption by thousands small and large organizations. This new payment option is both advantageous for the company and its customers. It provides some specific features make it useful for organizations. They are such as powerful toolkit, built for different developers, perfect scaling, and high security. With the help of this new payment technology customers can take loan form Moula in three simple steps. However, there are some recommendations have been provided for the company Moula to improve its security system for the new online payment technology. Reference list Afr, 2014.Online lender Moula adds offline loans. [online] Financial Review. Available at: https://www.afr.com/business/online-lender-moula-adds-offline-loans-20141022-11ago2 [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016]. Fintechmelbourne, 2016.Moula | FinTech Melbourne. [online] Fintechmelbourne.org. Available at: https://www.fintechmelbourne.org/moula-4/ [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016]. Moula, 2016.Moula - Business Loans. Quick. Smart.. [online] Moula. Available at: https://moula.com.au/ [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016]. Startupsmart, 2016. [online] Startupsmart.com.au. Available at: https://www.startupsmart.com.au/advice/growth/lending-startup-moula-scoops-up-30-million-in-series-a-funding-to-maintain-growth/ [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016]. Stripe, 2016.Stripe: Gallery. [online] Stripe.com. Available at: https://stripe.com/gallery#platform-payments [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016]. Wang, A. and Wang, A. 2013.Build an e-commerce mobile app on Parse and Stripe. [online] Parse Blog. Available at: https://blog.parse.com/learn/engineering/build-an-e-commerce-mobile-app-on-parse-and-stripe/ [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].