Financial technology, or fintech, uses technology to improve financial services. It can be found in a range of products, including digital banking, online lending, and investment platforms. The most popular fintechs challenge or displace traditional finance firms by offering nimbler, more user-friendly alternatives. The best-known examples include robo-advisors, payment apps, and peer-to-peer (P2P) lending apps.
The financial industry has seen a lot of change over the last few years. There’s been an unprecedented amount of money invested in start-up companies leveraging new technologies such as cloud computing, open-source software, serverless architecture, and software as a service.
Fintech companies have also benefited from increased scalability and speed enabled by the evolution of technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and data analytics. This has opened the door for many new players to enter the market and create disruptive business models.
These technologies allow for the compression of time and the cost of executing certain financial procedures such as title transfers, vehicle purchases, home sales, or money transfer from banks to other parties. It allows these processes to take seconds rather than days and reduces the need for physical visits to branches or salespeople.
Other fintechs have branched out into specific areas of the financial sector such as e-commerce platforms that enable direct payment between consumers and sellers without the involvement of banks; insurtech, which uses technology to simplify and streamline insurance systems; and regtech, which uses algorithms to automate regulatory processes. All of these developments have led to increased nimbleness in the financial sector and an era of start-ups that has changed the way established institutions approach their customers. https://greyjournal.net/hustle/work-tech/navigating-the-new-challenges-for-fintech-startups-in-a-changing-economic-landscape/