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What’s The Future Of Fintech?

Apart from making your way to the DMV, there are few things that people despise more than dealing with their bank.

From the amount of time it takes to make a transfer to those hidden fees, consumers and companies are fed up with the current system and they are now demanding change. Luckily, entrepreneurs are bringing that needed change to the world and the banking industry is being disrupted like never before. 

It’s too early to tell exactly what the impact of this disruption will be but it is clear that things are changing faster than ever before and it has the legacy banking system up in arms. To learn more about this change and where the industry is headed, we asked thought leaders one simple question:

What’s the future of Fintech?

This is what the experts have to say…

Mariona Prat, Project Manager of the Electronic Wallet Samsung Pay

“The future of fintech in 10 to 15 years relies on security and improving authentication methods for companies to ensure users’ identity across their online service offerings. Tech companies have been trying to replace traditional unreliable and inconvenient passwords (such as OTP -one time password) by developing:Fingerprint, which was the first technology aimed to solve this problem, but recently iris scanning replaced it as it has been proved to have better reliability. Future tech will include new biometric authentication methods such as facial recognition. Financial institutions will incorporate these new methods across their offerings, strengthening security and enabling their service offering expansion online with ideas such as payments through VR.”

 

Joy Schoffler, Executive Chair of FinTech Professionals

“While FinTech has made leaps and bounds in recent years, it’s important to remember the industry is still in its early days. The way our children interact with their money will astound us. From micro embedded wearables that let you walk out of stores without ever going to a cash register to enhanced voice technology that lets you shop from your devices. I am seeing amazing technologies from my position within the FTPA and being on the advisory board for SXSW and AARP, that will dramatically improve our financial lives. At the core of everything is simplification and personalization. Financial Institutions (FI’s) are already using data to better connect and interact with customers around the globe, as adoption at the biggest FI’s increases we will see more personalization in service and marketing. The possibility of holographic bank tellers that can perform almost any service the banking offers in the comfort of your home is not just a dream but a real possibility as technologies converge to make our lives easier. In short — friction will be removed and security will be enhanced in a way that is likely to make the Jetsons look more like the Flintstones to future generations.”

 

Matiss Ansviesulis, Co-Founder & CEO of Creamfinance

Since banks have started realizing the need for a more UX-centered approach, I can predict that more and more banks will start looking for collaboration opportunities with fintechs which will result in fintech-bank synergy. For banks, threat from fintech startups and scaleups is real. 2016 year proved that investments in fintech is growing, and not long ago fintechs and banks were seen as two opposing sides, hence unable to work together. But fintech and banking industries are better off working together than separately – so I assume that 2017 will present more opportunities for those two camps to cooperate and create a better offering together.”

 

Scott Williams, Director of Software Development at Tallwave

“In the next phase of FinTech innovation, I think we’re going to see a lot of disruption with APIs. Many of the large, traditional financial institutions are lacking solid APIs that allow external use, and this presents a tremendous opportunity for the startups that do.

I think the biggest opportunity here is that there is no big Platform for FinTech, and that could be gigantic. Lots of places have pieces, but there isn’t something like Amazon Web Services (AWS) for FinTech. I can see this kind of platform coming from traditional financial institutions, or from up and coming startups. Traditional institutions, like a bank, have the capital to make it happen, but also tremendous overhead and bureaucracy. They’ll need to adapt and innovate, or a more likely scenario is we’ll see a lot of acquisitions and mergers as these institutions buy up startups with strong APIs.”

 

Keith Armstrong, Co-founder and COO of Abe

“Democratized access to artificial intelligence (AI) will transform FinTech. AI lets institutions provide personalized, intelligent banking services to customers at scale. The technology is available now but will become more sophisticated and widespread in the next 10-15 years. Traditional financial institutions will have to either innovate to provide this experience, give way to nimble FinTech startups, or partner with them for mutual benefit.

As traditional banks, FinTech startups, and tech companies all work to provide the latest and greatest financial services, they’re removing layers of friction between customers and their banks, building a bank that is effectively “invisible.”

In the future, banking will become woven into the fabric of everyday life. Be it using your voice to pay bills while driving or discussing tough financial decisions with a virtual private banker on mobile chat applications, the need to physically visit a bank will disappear because banking will already be everywhere.”

 

Aaron Gilman, CIO and President of the Wealth Management Division at IFP

“Looking into 2017, I have seen a number of people cite investing trends. This is unsurprising. Trends are by nature trendy.

Two of the most oft-cited are the rises in 1) Technology in the form of robo platforms to guide investors, and 2) A passive investing approach.

Both are becoming more prominent and each has merit. Technology provides convenience and control. The guidance provided in online robo platforms tends to be sound, employing worthwhile techniques such as asset allocation, rebalancing, and tax harvesting. Passive investing – seeking not to outrun the market, but merely hitch a ride on it – has likewise proven to be a highly effective long term strategy.

But there’s a catch. Actually, there’s a catch 22; technology makes people less passive.

The technology that increases information and access is the same technology that increases the need for instant gratification and our ability to get some.

Tons of information + instant gratification = bad investing. (TMI + PDQ = WTF).

As worthwhile as these trends are, the missing piece – and the reason we started MarketPsych Insights, is that all investing ultimately gets filtered through the complex and unique psychology of individuals with varying goals, strengths, weaknesses and personalities. When investing goes wrong, it is almost always because these factors were not addressed, not because the plan was bad.”

 

Kerri Moriarty, Head of Company Development at Cinch Financial

“I believe (as we are already experiencing) there will be a continued trend in FinTech to alternative approaches to traditional banking and financial services. Additionally, I think we will continue to see a trend toward automation and artificial intelligence to more efficiently (and accurately?) optimize financial management. From a fiduciary perspective, I think the regulation in the financial landscape will look drastically different in even 5-7 years than it does today. Regardless of political affiliation, millennials are hungry for transparency and are skeptical and discerning of deceptive advertising and branding. I think the FinTech industry is moving away from an opaque, heavily lead-generation focused, space that serves to benefit large financial companies and institutions first and foremost and will instead become a transparent, unbiased, empowered space with companies and services focused on the best interest of the end user. Technology has made almost everything in life much easier and it’s time for the FinTech industry to harness its capability to bring all of the information and leverage to the consumer when it comes to lending, credit, personal finance, payments and beyond. I think regulation will continue to change the dynamic between consumer and industry and I believe that big data will finally tip the scales toward the millennial consumer, who continue to demonstrate they won’t stand for anything otherwise.”

 

Eyal Lifshitz, Founder and CEO of BlueVine

“Fintech companies will increasingly expand beyond their current scope, offering additional products and services to more customer segments. Many Fintech companies began by focusing on one need, whether it’s personal loans, credit card processing or wealth management. What we’ll see over time is that more and more Fintech companies will start expanding beyond their initial focus and will seek to address other needs. They’ll either offer more services to their existing base, or expand to other segments and markets. Fintech companies are thinking more and more of their customers, not just products. They’re asking: How do I provide more services to the same customers or to additional segments?”

 

John Bodrozic, Co-Founder  of HomeZada

“A growth area for fintech is the intersection of incumbent financial services companies working with startups that ultimately provide value added solutions to the consumer in a customer engagement category. Most large established financial services companies have a transactional, one time relationship with the consumer. After the transaction, they lose touch with consumer and struggle to get renewal business or cross selling opportunities because they lack an ongoing, meaningful digital relationship with the consumer.

Customer engagement is a hot subject within Fintech as many of these large financial and insurance companies are looking to differentiate their financial services products beyond a commodity viewpoint that consumers have by offering value added technology. Startups are positioned with innovative platforms that create meaningful digital experiences for consumers, but need to partner with established companies to scale to more consumers creating a 3 way win, the consumers, the startup and the incumbents.”

 

Jørgen Christian Juul ,CEO & Founder of Cardlay

“In the future, open modification, advanced use of blockchain powering technologies, biometrics, complex algorithms and hybrid robo-advisors will dominate FinTech innovation. A lot of new services based upon bank’s platforms facilitating considerable innovation and underpinning the established distribution architecture will emerge.

New cryptocurrencies and blockchain powering technologies will be used in order to accelerate and automate transactions, create multiple copies of a ledger simultaneously, and enhance transaction security. Cross-industry collaboration, co-innovation and openness will expand in order to generate value and meet evolving customer needs. Computerized recommendations with on-demand services that streamline payments, security processes and online advisory that increase efficiency and cuts costs will create new and unknown distribution channels. The FinTech industry is heading towards a future build on cross-industry collaboration, open innovation, business process automation and dissolved barriers.”

 

Jonathan Breeze, CEO & Founder of FinTech Insurance Marketplace AardvarkCompare

“10 years from now what we consider FinTech today will be mainstream. Full disruption of the financial and insurance industries will have occurred, and consumers will be the winners.

Marketplaces will dominate – in just a few clicks consumers will see the best possible insurance prices for Home & Auto. The won’t save once, they will save every year.

The credit card rate they are offered will be the lowest; the bank savings rate the highest.

Marketplaces will dominate distribution, ensuring that their customers are always shown what is best for the customer.

The major banks and insurers that we know and love today will have entered into a pricing war that can only imagine today in their worst nightmares.

Imagine a world in which every consumer has perfect market knowledge – profitability begins to vanish for the banks and insurers.

They enter into a world of streamlining and cost control in order to offer value.

The consumer wins in the future.”

 

About the author

Nick Hastreiter

I write about the future of business. I approach this by interviewing founders, CEO's, and other game changers to share their vision for the future of their industry.

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