The rise of the fintech sector is one example of how technology is impacting the financial world.
This revolution is an answer to the financial industry’s need for technological innovation and it is changing the way financial businesses operate.
As a young industry that is constantly changing, it is hard to define what ‘fintech’ is. What we can say is that the term describes an emerging financial services industry that is disrupting traditional sectors such as banking, mobile payments, money transfers, investment and asset management.
No longer can the financial industry be considered as the slowest industry to embrace innovation as the rapid rise of fintech is changing the rules.
An event that focuses on this topic, “Future of Fintech", was held in New York between the 26th and the 28th of June 2017. Many speakers were involved and addressed themes such as the world’s largest financial institutions, the best fintech startups and the most active venture investors.
CB Insights, the platform that analyses data to predict technology trends, has created The Fintech 250, a list that identifies the top emerging private companies that will change the world of financial services. To select the companies CB Insight used a data-driven/algorithmic process that took into consideration factors such as:
- Momentum: non-traditional signals such as news mentions, sentiment, jobs data/hiring, social media, web traffic and usage, partnerships, and more.
- Market: health of the sector and industry in which the company operates, including funding, deals, exit activity, and hiring.
- Money: financial signals including funding recency and total raised.
- Investor quality: based on exits, returns, and portfolio quality, it analyses the quality of the investors participating at the company’s deal.
The list included brands such as AngelList, GoFundMe, Indiegogo and Kickstarter.
The Benefits of Fintechs
The fintech industry provides benefits both for businesses and consumers, focusing on the accessibility and speed of its services. On one hand, businesses now have access to fast internet connections, big data computing and mobile connectivity. They can buy financial software and realise business insights that ten years ago were not accessible.
On the other hand, customers can enjoy improved software design and user experience, as well as faster internet and real-time information and transactions accessible by smartphones.
It is needless to say that these innovations have simplified crowdfunding fuelling growth in the industry and boosting the proliferation of fintech crowdfunding platform such as the above-mentioned Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe and many more.