7 FinTech Trends to Watch Out for in 2017
In 2013, statistics showed that the global value of FinTech industry stood at approximately $3 billion. In 2014, it gained traction by gaining about $12 billion in investments. By 2015, that figured crossed the $20 billion mark. The year 2016 saw a good deal of disruption and brought about some major changes in the industry. It was expected that these changes would have tremendous impact on the direction that the industry took in the year 2017.
Here are some of the trends that were expected to dominate the FinTech industry in this year 2017!
Fintegration and Instant payments
The FinTech industry and traditional banking industry have always competed for customers. In the year 2016, this changed completely with these two industries joining hands to deliver better customer experiences. This enable better customer retention and greater revenue generation for banks while the FinTech industry gains legitimacy from the collaboration.
The aim for the coming years will be to provide services that are faster and more convenient with broader integration, that will in turn drive the growth in the industry by enabling banks keep pace with the expectations of their customers. Another opportunity lies in the form of frictionless payments that allows organizations to build a seamless customer experience even in the brick and mortar retail industry. FinTech in collaboration with other detection technology can allow customers to build their virtual carts even in brick and mortar stores that allows them to walk straight out after an online transaction. The first evidence of this can be seen at the Amazon Go store based in Seattle!
Wallets have become less necessary
Biometric security
Fintech integrated with Social Media
Mobile transactions
Predictive analytics - future is with AI
Blockchain - beyond financial transactions with smart contracts
Oliver Bussmann thinks 2017 will be the ‘year of the pilot’ for blockchain in financial services, as it moves from proof-of-concept into production. Blockchain makes it possible for a digital ledger of transactions to be created and shared among a distributed network of computers without the transaction details being duplicated or copied. This presents significant opportunities for solutions to be created that enable verification of documents and transactions. This presents great opportunities in the field of trade finance solutions.
We wait for the end of the year eagerly to take a look back the events and see how many of these predictions actually come true!