If you’ve paid for good and services with phones, transferred cash online, checked bank statements using an app, then you’re a part of the multibillion-dollar Global Fintech Market that’s slowly transforming global economies. Fintech is, in fact, a word used to refer to a host of technology, services, products, business models being applied to the financial services industry.
Hundreds of these services are disrupting the banking and financial industry as we know it by changing the way we borrow money and pay for things.
It seems like the bold new way to do things. Initially, it was just a handful of start-ups that were leading the way, literally pioneers in this field. Today, big brands like Alibaba, Google, and Apple are adapting to this financial technology trend by providing their customers, on a global scale, with services like Apple Pay. Google Pay and AliPay.
The reason for the rush is simple – their consumers have already adapted to or adopted the whole online or financial services scene. You’ve probably already heard of many of these new financial innovations too – things like crowd-funding platforms, robo-advisors, virtual currencies, and cashless payments.
Global consumers tend to use the less complicated services like cash transfers, insurance, loans, and financial planning tools as they are regulated and users have full control over them. Virtual currencies and crowd-funding applications are a little less popular and are sought after by those who really understand finance.
In India, there are two aspects of financial technology that are popular. One is where all banks have gone online. They provide their customers with a host of online services for various banking-related activities, transferring money, requesting for assistance, etc. In most areas, both urban and rural, people only need to have a PC, laptop, phone to access their bank accounts, create a new one, apply for a loan or purchase stocks.
The other aspect involves the consumers, who install m-wallet apps and services like PayTM, FreeCharge, and the MSwipe POS solutions for merchants, to name a few. They use these services for greater financial mobility and to get even more options that help them to use and manage their money.
This is how people who do have access to fintech services technology make use of it. What about the people who don’t?
Financial technology can be used to fill in that void as well. Banks can now reach them, assist them with financial independence and with a wider range of other services that could benefit them.
Breaking the traditional bar
Consumers aren’t the only ones that are going digital. Asset managers, lenders, insurances providers, and other financial professionals now have to understand digital technology as well or how to manage, deliver it. They have to apply robo-advisors applications, other tools, and software to their existing financial service delivery models.
These are automated financial planning tools that are online 24×7 and are more affordable. The digital wave might have begun with a simple catalog online in the form of a website. It has now graduated to those aspects of the business that deal with customers, and service delivery as well.
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