Money Gets Simpler with Fintech Innovations

• Published Month : Monday, 23 Dec 2019 07:00 pm

Fintech is currently undergoing a natural evolution. Starting around 2010, many fintech startups began by offering point solutions that dramatically improved on one function of traditional financial services. Now many of these startups are expanding their services to include multiple offerings that appeal to wider audiences.

While the term “fintech” has been around for years, it’s worth taking a fresh check out the industry in the face of rapidly advancing technology and a mess of latest players. The financial technology industry encompasses technology-enabled firms offering financial services, also as entities providing technology services to financial institutions. Fintech companies use technology to support financial transactions among businesses and consumers. Technological advances, changing demand for financial products and competition in financial services are all driving a replacement wave of fintech startups and investments that have drawn attention to the industry in recent years. 

Startup companies are creating products and services to penetrate new areas of the economic system and to vary the competitive landscape. These new forces are encouraging traditional financial firms to invest in technology and to concentrate on changing trends among their customers. All new and incumbent players are going to be impacted by the changes we see happening in the marketplace today. But understanding the space and that specialize in key developments amid all the hype are often a challenge.

The financial services industry across the world has experienced severe changes in terms of technologies over past few years. Many executives look to their IT departments to enhance efficiency and facilitate game-changing innovation – while somehow also lowering costs and continuing to support legacy systems. Meanwhile, FinTech start-ups are encroaching upon established markets, leading with customer friendly solutions developed from the bottom up and unencumbered by legacy systems. Customers have had their expectations set by other industries; they're now demanding better services, seamless experiences regardless of channel, and more value for their money. Regulators demand more from the industry too, and have begun to adopt new technologies which will revolutionize their ability to gather and analyze information. Also, the changes show no signs of slowing down. 

Quality Service, Quicker Sales

Financial institutions are already using artificial intelligence (AI) to experiment with service that's much more personalized. We expect AI, machine learning, and customer analytics to become the driving force of client engagement over subsequent decades. Certainly, financial institutions will got to deliver instantaneous, seamless transactions, but speed is simply the baseline requirement. Smart businesses will develop new sorts of virtual engagement capable of integrating themselves into customers’ lives. They will stick because they're going to be personal: informed by intelligence gathered from data about consumer behaviors, choices, and volunteered preferences.

What robots can do?

Here are a number of the capabilities shaping these sophisticated machines:

• Cognition: The robot’s ability to perceive, understand, plan and navigate within the real world. Better cognitive ability means robots can work autonomously in diverse, dynamic and sophisticated environments.
• Manipulation: Precise control & dexterity for manipulating objects in the environment. With developments in manipulation, robots would possibly combat a better diversity of tasks as well as use cases.
• Interaction: The robot’s ability to find out from and collaborate with humans. Progress here – like support for verbal and nonverbal communications, observing and copying human behavior, and learning from experiences – means robots will increasingly be ready to work alongside humans.

What is behind this shift? Data storage costs have plummeted, facilitated by cloud-based infrastructure. This has made it easier to manage ‘big data’ and apply sophisticated analytics, and it's also reduced the barriers to entry for brand spanking new FinTech disruptors. Moreover, public cloud investments are growing quickly, spending on private cloud is increasing, and traditional infrastructure spending has plateaued. According to a recent research report, public cloud investments increased by almost 32% in 2015 to US$21.7 billion and private cloud investments grew in 2015 by nearly 17%, reaching US$11.7 billion. Overall, total cloud IT infrastructure spending grew approx. 26% in 2015, reaching about US$33.4 billion. To put that in perspective, this is often approximately one-third of all IT spending.

Curiously, the sharing economy also plays a role here. After all, some companies that have a demonstrated competence in a neighborhood are choosing to sell it to others who need it. For instance, the payments infrastructure of several industrial, healthcare as well as smaller FinTech institutions are being delivered by conventional banks. These banks are selling their infrastructure as a service to others, and leveraging the cloud to try to it. This provides a crucial source of revenue to these institutions.