Fintech News

5 technologies that will disrupt fintech in the next 5 years

Fintech – Financial Technology – has washed away the obsolete thought of how the future will work. Basically, fintech covers any technology that’s involved  in the finances, evolving this domain further on (insurance, banking, investing etc.).

Speaking of technology revolution, the question that stands out is “who the human being is: a worker with countless tasks or a creature with limitless capabilities to shape the world by vivid imagination using machines only as physical hands” Around a black hole, there’s an invisible line in space called the event horizon. Let’s see what occurs there and makes the future see-through with mobile app development experts at Belitsoft:

New ways to pay

Banking. The old-fashioned rules banks work with are now crumbling like a thousand-year papyrus on the wind. But what will replace those gigantic paved roads of money traffic?

  • Mobile, instant and contactless payments. The world is turning mobile and money is not an exception. For now, mobile payments may be settled using different ways of data transferring, e.g. BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy technology is applied to PayPal’s beacon and Apple’s iBeacon), NFC (Near Field Communication – Android Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay).

In the next few years payment methods promise to update our thinking of funds management and interaction:

  • JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and U.S. Bancorp have merged their efforts and created clearXchange – a digital payments network that allows to securely send money to anyone using a US bank account.
  • Wearable, contactless payments have a chance to become a well-crafted explosion in the several years (Apple watch or Samsung gear G3, for instance, which opened the holistic path of health and finances; Scan-and-go shopping technology, bPay band, Lyle & Scott bPay contactless jacket, PayCapsule-Flex and many other projects that slowly but surely evolve the market).
  • Banking with a fingerprint by Digital Insight, an NCR company and leader in digital banking solutions, announced it is providing Touch ID functionality for mobile banking applications.
  • Voice-activated banking by Amazon was introduced as Alexa personal banking. As Karen Webster, CEO of Pymnts. com said, “The power of voice is its potential to create transaction flows that adapt to the life of the consumer instead of having the consumer adapt to the flow of a baked-in set of banking and payments processes.”. As they say on the www.pymnts.com, several banks decided to participate and offer something new to their customers (Barclays, HBSC, Wells Fargo, Santander, The Royal Bank of Canada), whether it the biometric security, virtual assistants, identifying information input or more.
  • Digital/alternative money. Or simply speaking – cryptocurrencies. It’s impossible to say for sure what Cryptos were made for originally. But what they do now is transforming the world of finances into the reachable and simple source of possibilities. Digital money go hand-in-hand with Blockchain technology what makes this payment way highly secured and transparent.  

Blockchain Technology

Over years B-chain has been gradually expanding its scope of application.  

According to Forbes, Blockchain technology is already ringing the bell of banking house, offering a brand-new, upgraded transactional system. At the moment, all existing financial institutions may give is ink on paper with an outdated software on top. These are a piece of cake to steal. What B-chain has is a secure mode in a robust system operating on transparency and integrity. Data is stored in a real-time updated digital ledger where to add or change anything is a challenge.

“Wire and transfer fees will be decreased by using bitcoin, clearing and settlement can happen instantly, loans and credit applications can be assessed on the spot and consumers will have instant access to the funds they need and the answers they require.”

Smart contracts crawl through the many spheres that are yearning for peace and immutable trust. In finances, this technology allows exchanging money and anything of value without the need of a third party services.

Robotic Process Automation and AI

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology aimed at business processes automation. Unlike the ERP model, it doesn’t “aspire” to find any methods to increase the staff efficiency, but simplifies the workers’ routine by taking some tasks out of the day.  

RPA robots utilize the user interface to capture data and manipulate applications just like humans do. They interpret, trigger responses and communicate with other systems in order to perform on a vast variety of repetitive tasks.

The RPA market is expected to grow up to 8.75 billion USD by 2024.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) has many definitions, but in the end it’s a programmed intellect that comes from the machine, not human being. Originally, there are two types of AI: weak and strong. Weak is good at bringing a highly effective implementation to the simple tasks, and strong has a broad scope of application that lies a little bit deeper just because it has enough intellect to solve a problem it has never faced before.  

And since weak AI is used as a narrow helper with a limited capabilities and tasks implementation (e.g. Siri from Apple, or Alice from Yandex), strong type has become a huge prospect for many domains.

“Strong Artificial Intelligence is a term used to describe a certain mindset of artificial intelligence development. Strong AI’s goal is to develop artificial intelligence to the point where the machine’s intellectual capability is functionally equal to a human’s.”

www.ocf.berkeley.edu

Finances are the biggest winner from AI expansion, applying it for the personal assistants, chatbots, cognitive computing and machine learning. AI is intended to entirely automate manual labour, what will naturally decrease the overall costs on staff and maintenance, and rise the security and fraud detection up to the next level. These features are in demand and expected to be in the near future. Therefore, companies are seeking for the trustful, efficient and versatile implementers – machines.

Turning to the real events: The Royal Bank of Canada, as well as Israel Discount Bank use AI platform to accelerate and improve their customer services. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, for instance, began its experiments with AI and already gained the unique approach for managing clients’ money.

So, in the future, the rest of the world will swell the ranks of  organisations that have been significantly investing in AI.

API platforms

According to the Wikipedia, Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of methods and protocols for building software. In short, this “granny’s basket” provides all the building bricks (blocks) to develop a software.

They basically offer a platform with clean and moldable interfaces for your developers and backуd by a closet full of powerful tools.

So, digging deeply, API platform helps easily create productive user experiences.

And because it wraps the filling of a software, puts them together turning into a user-friendly and functional machine, many have instantly started their own APIs:  

  • Mastercard has a wide array of API of diverse functions (assurance of the validity of digital transactions, Mastercard Identity Check, Bill Payment Validator, currency calculators and many more);
  • Cardconnect allows to securely accept a wide-range of credit, debit, and alternative payments.  
  • PayPal developed a set of API platforms (current HTTP-based RESTful APIs, include Payout APIs, Invoicing, Checkout etc.; and antiquated NVP/SOAP APIs – for PayPal legacy and outdated products);
  • Forte Payment System managed to create a multi-integrated solutions for developers and merchants (ACH processing, mobile and online payments, direct recovery, virtual terminal, bill presentment, NSF check recovery and many more);
  • Visa also decided to take part and offered a “smaller version” of its services packed in a hand-made API platforms, with the capability scales from funds transferring to transaction control.

Regulatory Technology

Regulatory Technology, or simply Regtech, is a complex solution to deep-rooted problems or just real-time issues in the financial services (regulatory reporting, identity verification, big data analysis, compliance monitoring). For instance, to increase transfer and transaction settlements security, blockchain technology may be used; for fraud detecting, it involves monitoring and surveillance systems, etc.

And the reason why those fruits on the Regtree are so attractive for banks and other financial entities is the ratio of costs to results. Regtech companies offer their services at the affordable prices, though entirely affecting the ecosystem insight of their customers.

Such a sweet “no regrets” measures make many in the domain strive for applying the technology.

Conclusion.

Blockchain is the favorite and has already been adopted in many domains including finances. Its impact and usability are undoubted.

Though robotic “intrusion” is quite arguable and risky for many, it surely stands for the future and finance enforcement. By manual labour replacement, people will focus on other areas of existence. A new era of imagination brought to reality by humans and machines together is up.

Coloured flashes of mobile payments are heartily welcomed owing to their simple, secure and convenient approach to assistance: paying on-the-go was a dream and now it came true.

And speaking of the contactless mobility alone, there were unsuccessful attempts to move ahead some distinctive dimension of funds management (Google’s wi-fi payment). The thought makes the trail, and in 5 years we may expect a proven and adjusted unlimited funds transfers across the world.

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