Harleen Kaur
FinTech Revolution has been sweeping the world for quite sometime now. As the users got more comfortable operating their finances on the go or in the internet, it was just a matter of time that fintech solutions got better and better integrated into people’s day to day lives.
As one of the famous technology quotes goes “Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic ”– Sir Arthur C. Clarke
This Fintech revolution is all set to form an indispensable part of our lives in the time to come. There are a lot of areas in which technology has been making a powerful impact in the financial world, we shall focus more on Fintech in retail for the purpose of this blog.
So, here we share the top areas where the Fintech is disrupting the finance space, of course in a positive way :
Payments
Payments has always been the pillar in the finance space. The incumbents have been there for a long time. e.g. in cross-border remittances, it was once seen to be impossible to compete with big names like Western Union and MoneyGram etc. The scenario has completely changed now.
A wave of payment startups is already heading towards revolutionising the finance world and making things much simpler for the common man. There are multiple areas in which these startups have been making an impact.
We will analyse a few of these important areas :
(i) Cross-border remittances :
Cross border remittances have been quite a pain for sometime. But, the scenario has been changing in the past few years and there have been a slew of innovative tech startups coming up to relieve the pain of cross-border remittances.
(ii) Payment Gateways :
Paypal has lead the payment gateway world for long. However, issues with integration and support left a big void for more players to enter the space. Since then there have been a lot of players operating in the payments space across the individual countries and across countries space as well. There are many startups operating in individual countries as well trying to solve the local payment gateway issues.
Financial Services
Financial Services are an important part of the retail users financial workflow. They help them in the financial lifecycle of the user. A lot of Fintech startups have come up in this space as well and they help the users in their day to day financial cycle.
Let’s have a look at few startups that are coming up in this space :
(i) Robo Advisory Services :
These are the startups that help users invest their money. A Robo-Advisor is an algorithm that decides the portfolio of a user using an algorithm. The Robo-Advisors intend to replace the traditional financial advisor and charge a fraction of fee as their advisory service.
The best known startups in this space are Betterment, Wealthfront in US. Apart from US, this field has also caught up across the world and almost every country has its own host of local Robo-Advisory startups.
(ii) Insurance Advisory and Purchase Platforms :
Insurance Advisory and purchase platforms help you find the suitable insurance required for your needs. They also help you optimize so that you get the best insurance at the least price. These companies fall majorly in InsureTech Space.
Some of the InsureTech companies have envisioned insurance differently from the traditional insurance companies as well however most of these startups generally act as a middleman.
(iii) Loan and Mortgage Startups :
Loans are another important aspect of retail customer may it be home loan, car loan, personal loan or any other loan. The loans are so much important that an expensive or a stringent loan can break the backbone of a person’s finances.
So, here comes the role of these LoanTech companies to help you figure out and get the best loan available for your profile.
(iv) Only Online Banks, Wallets :
This is another category of FinTech startups that are making banking easier without any offline touch bases. Recently a lot of only online Banks have got very popular and have raised a lot of funds. These banks make banking easier by operating only through online modes and not requiring any physical touch base.
In a nutshell, Technology startups are disrupting every aspect of finance space and also since finance being the domain with calculation and formulas, it is easy to fit technology to the space. Get ready, exciting times are waiting ahead for us in the FinTech Space for sure.
Feel free to share your opinions on the same !
This is a guest post by Ishwinder Singh, a young startup enthusiast running a Fintech startup who regularly shares his unique ideas on technology, apps, software, gadgets, CRMs, Fintech and other related topics at Techpikk.com. For latest technology updates you can tune in to Techpikk.
