Fintech

'Fintech'

Word Fintech is used to describe financial technology that defines an developing financial services industry in the 21st century. Initially, the term applied to technology used for the back-end of well-known consumer and trade financial organizations. Since the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the term is now used to include any technological breakthrough in the financial area, including innovations in financial education, banking, investment and even crypto-currencies like bitcoin.

Understanding 'Fintech'

The term financial technology can be used for any innovation in how people manage business, from the advent of digital money to double-entry bookkeeping. Internet and Mobility have revolutionized the digital landscape; however, financial technology has grown at rather slow space, and fintech, which began with computer technology applied to the back office of banks or trading companies, now is used to define a broad variety of technological interventions into personal and commercial finance. As per to EY's Fintech Adoption Index, one-third of customers use at least two or more fintech services and those customers are also gradually aware of fintech as a part of their daily lives.

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Fintech's Expansion and Adoption

If one word can state how many fintech innovations have affected conventional trading, banking, financial advice and products, it's 'disruption,' as financial products and services that were once the realm of branches, salesmen and desktops move toward mobile devices or simply democratize away from large, fixed institutions. These days we see that the mobile-only stock trading apps are charging no fees for trades, and peer-to-peer lending websites like Prosper Marketplace and Lending Club promise to decrease rates by opening up competition for loans to broad market elements.

Emerging Technologies

New technologies such as machine learning/artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and data-driven marketing, is going to take guesswork and habit out of financial decision making. "Learning" apps will not only learn the usage patterns of consumers, often hidden to themselves, but will certainly engage consumers in learning games to make their automatic, unconscious spending and saving decisions better.

The Fintech Landscape

Fintech companies and startups received $17.4 billion in funding in 2016 and were on pace to exceed that sum as of late 2017, according to CB Insights, which counted 26 fintech unicorns globally valued at $83.8 billion. North American has produced most fintech startups, with Asia following. Some of the most sought-after areas of fintech innovation revolve around the following:

• Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin
• Blockchain technology and Etherium, a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that maintain records on a network of computers, but has no central ledger.
• Smart contracts that will utilize computer programs (often utilizing the blockchain) to automatically execute contracts between buyers and sellers.
• Insurtech, which is simplifying and streamlining insurance industry
• Regtech, which is to help financial service firms meet compliance requirement
• Unbanked/underbanked, services that serves purpose of financial inclusion
• Cybersecurity, because of proliferation of digital crime and the decentralized data storage, need of companies in cybersecurity is utmost.