Financial technology a.k.a. Fintech is used to describe the arise of the financial sector where the establishments use technology to make financial services more systematic and productive. Large sums of money and vast establishments is what attracted the tech moguls towards the financial sector. The volume of M&A transactions in the FinTech sector rose 14% in 2015 compared with the year before. The Fintech habitat is ripe and booming constantly, be it a customer or a business.
Finca (Microfinance organization)and First Access (Data Analytics Firm) recently formed an alliance to provide loans in East Africa through the usage of mobile phone data acting as credit scores. This sort of trend has already shaped and transformed some Small to Medium business corporations.
Kelvin Aderi, a Nairobi based mobile shop owner stated “At first I feared they would give my data to the security services but actually they appear to have been very transparent. And anyway, the advantages of letting them take my data massively outweigh the potential risks.”
In theory banking system is propelled to enslaved people into debts which is very evident from the fact that the crux of the bank remains in credit and interest. Numerous Fintech firms of past era are competing with the banks as these firms specialize in customer experience and convenience. For instance, PayPal started offering online payments as a service for merchants when checks were becoming irrelevant for e-commerce transactions. This immediately made PayPal a household name and the company was able to gain significant market shares in a sector that was gravely neglected by banks.
As of the end of 2015, there were 1362 fintech companies spread across 54 countries in the world. While many countries provide a good ecosystem for fintech startups, no country can match the United Kingdom, Singapore and Luxembourg. These countries invite the fintech startups with a red carpet giving them many incentives to launch and operate their business in their country. The United Kingdom offers many perks such as tax holidays and a £860 million fund from the National Cyber Security Programme for deserving cyber security companies.
In the long run, alternative finance and its respective platforms will thrive on the basis of demonstrated success. It will be the credible platforms, which treat their customers as their best brand ambassadors, and not the ones that shout loudest that will come out on top.
Lately, few banks and financial establishments have enjoyed a monopolistic outpost and with the rise of Fintech startups, their influence is dying down in terms of market share forcing them to focus on customer experience and devising new alternatives for the same.
