The name Fintech was coined by merging two words: finance and technology. With the evolution of every aspect of society, it wasn’t a surprise that modern technology would find its way in finance as well. The latest technological breakthroughs are used in banking, investing and cryptocurrencies.
The financial crisis in 2008 opened the doors for novel ways of providing financial services. The investment in Fintech in the same year was $930 million and in the next 7 years it increased to more than $22 billion. This shows the huge growth of the new financial industry which specializes in areas such as insurance, trading, and risk management.
The major characteristic which attracts customers is that the products and services that these firms offer are cheaper and more innovate that those by traditional banks.
One of the innovations is that many of the companies have shown interest in cryptocurrencies in the past years. Fintech uses software because it is mainly based of digital information. In turn, this makes it vulnerable to hacking attacks, which is why the leading companies opted to using cloud computing as a new solution for data security. Such example is Expedia which was one of the first to adopt Bitcoin when it partnered with Affirm.
Even though Fintech companies experience a rapid growth, it is unlikely that in the foreseeable future they will be able to “kill off” traditional banks. At the very least, the banks are trying to stay in touch with modern technologies, despite their rigid structures.
Take a look at the infographic below which has many statistics that will help you understand the incredible growth of Fintech.
