PSG Senior Manager

👩‍🍳 How we use AI at Tech in Asia, thoughtfully and responsibly.🧔‍♂️ A friendly human may check it before it goes live. More news hereThe UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on June 13 that Google’s 2022 commitments on online advertising are no longer necessary.This follows Google’s April decision to drop its plan for a standalone prompt for third-party cookies.The CMA had raised concerns that removing third-party cookies could hurt competition in the digital ad market.Google responded with commitments tied to its “privacy sandbox” efforts to address these issues.The regulator is now consulting on whether to formally release these commitments later this year.🔗 Source: Reuters🧠 Food for thought1️⃣ The economic balancing act behind cookie policy changesGoogle’s approach to cookie deprecation reflects a careful balancing of business interests against growing privacy demands.With advertising constituting a massive 88.7% of Google’s revenue ($77 billion in 2016), the company has a strong financial incentive to move cautiously with any changes that might disrupt this revenue stream 1.This explains why Google has repeatedly adjusted its timeline for phasing out third-party cookies, extending the deprecation timeline to 2025 and ultimately reversing course to allow user control over cookie preferences rather than implementing a blanket ban 23.The CMA’s decision to release Google from its prior commitments shows how regulatory frameworks must adapt to tech companies’ evolving strategies, especially when those strategies shift toward giving users more choice.The regulatory reversal demonstrates that antitrust concerns about market competition can sometimes be addressed through policy changes that increase user control rather than through formal regulatory commitments.2️⃣ Rising consumer privacy demands reshaping digital advertisingGoogle’s evolving approach to cookies reflects broader shifts in consumer sentiment about data privacy that are forcing fundamental changes in digital advertising.A comprehensive Pew Research survey found 71% of Americans express concern about how their data is used—up from 64% in 2019—and 72% advocate for stronger privacy regulations 4.This consumer backlash is substantial, with 60% of consumers believing their data is misused and 42.7% specifically concerned about data breaches 5.Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative represents an attempt to respond to these concerns while preserving advertising functionality, offering anonymized signals instead of individual tracking 6.The tension between privacy and personalization has become a central business challenge, forcing not just Google but the entire advertising ecosystem to develop new approaches that can maintain ad effectiveness without the granular tracking that cookies enabled.3️⃣ The industry-wide transformation beyond GoogleThe CMA’s decision reflects a broader industry evolution where the entire digital marketing landscape is being forced to develop alternatives to third-party cookie tracking.Marketing professionals across sectors are actively developing new measurement methods including first-party cookies, zero-party data (information directly shared by consumers), and server-side tracking solutions 7.These shifts will redistribute power in the digital advertising ecosystem, potentially strengthening platforms with strong first-party relationships while challenging those dependent on cross-site tracking 8.The competitive implications are significant enough that regulators like the CMA had initially viewed Google’s cookie deprecation as potentially anti-competitive, highlighting how privacy changes can have complex market consequences 89.The extended timeline for cookie changes, now stretching into 2025, demonstrates the technical and economic complexity of transforming a digital advertising system built over two decades around cookie-based tracking 2.Recent Google developments

Tokenization is no longer a concept confined to whitepapers and pilot programs – instead, it is set to reinvent global financial infrastructure. As Ripple and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) highlight in their recent report, asset tokenization will turn static assets into dynamic, programmable tools and pave the way for a $19 trillion market by 2033.That future takes a concrete step forward today: Ondo Finance’s Ondo Short-Term U.S. Government Treasuries (OUSG) is now live on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). This milestone expands institutional access to one of the most credible, institutional-grade real-world assets onchain—accessible via seamless minting and redemptions with Ripple’s enterprise-grade stablecoin, RLUSD.A New Era for Tokenized U.S. TreasuriesOndo Finance continues to lead the way in real-world asset tokenization, with over $1.3B in TVL, now expanding support to the XRPL. OUSG was the first tokenized security to achieve material adoption and, with over $670M in TVL, remains one of the largest tokenized Treasury products in the market—alongside offerings from BlackRock and Franklin Templeton

Hyper-personalised communication from your bank can be transformative – for it and you. So why are some of them still spamming us? Here, Meniga and Boston Consulting Group advocate for targeted commsMost of us will have received them – notifications on our banking app that are annoyingly irrelevant.The travel insurance offer that lands just as you do… on your return home. The cheerful message that ‘you’re eligible for a loan’ within days of taking one out with the very same bank.Such unsophisticated, impersonal interactions between banks and their customers don’t endear us to them.And if banks are serious about evolving from being merely transactional services providers to becoming your money-savvy best mate, then they need to sharpen up. A recent survey by Accenture found that although 72 per cent per cent of customers say personalisation influences their choice of bank, only three per cent actually use personalised tools offered by their main provider, leading the authors to conclude that: ‘there’s a clear disconnect between what customers want and what banks think they want’.“Too often… budgeting tools and automated alerts – think tailored offers or next-best actions – are coming across as impersonal and standardised, missing an opportunity for true connection in their delivery,” they added.It’s a message echoed by Meniga, a global leader in digital banking technology, which works with more than 170 banks across more than 35 countries to help them provide their customers with hyper-personalised financial management services.Meniga, which was founded in Iceland in 2009 but since 2016 has had headquarters in London, created a digital banking engagement playbook for its clients, which consists of three core tenets: turn your data into value; hyper-personalise the banking experience; and harness gamification to build habits.Stressing the vital importance of doing so, Raj Soni, Meniga’s CEO, says: “The traditional banks need to seriously transform their digital and online banking capabilities, and also capitalise upon the vast amount of user data that they have, and which neobanks do not have, to create super-hyper-personalised dynamic experiences and engagement for customers. That adds real value.”Citing a personal example, he continues: “A few months ago, I was positively surprised when I received a notification from my bank that I had been spending far too much money on FX and foreign currency-related charges, when I was travelling, using my existing credit and debit cards.“And I was also positively surprised to get a proposition for a multi-currency credit card, which would allow me to hold various currencies and use that specific card as I commute across the world for my different business and personal needs.“This is a perfect example where a bank, knowing me as an individual, and having access to my data, added real and tangible value with a very personalised offer.”Michal Panowicz, Managing Director and Partner at the London office of Boston Consulting Group, which helps its banking clients drive digital transformation and works with Meniga, would agree with that. But he doesn’t see it happening nearly often enough – and certainly not in the countries you’d expect.“The best digitally developed markets are not in the US or the UK – which are financial and technology centres – but in Spain, Turkey, Poland, India