FinTech. This word could be the most abused, but also the most underrated in recent decades. The technological revolution in the financial world has recently taken off, with an explosion in demand and investments by venture capitalists, while traditional operators are starting to move more convinced to face the new digital competitors.
WHAT DO INVESTORS THINK?
This was the question asked by the first World FinTech Report, created by Capgemini and LinkedIn, in collaboration with Efma, on a sample of 8.000 bank customers from 15 countries, and accompanied by interviews with 100 senior managers.
It emerged that around half of banking customers worldwide (50,2%) use the products or services of at least one FinTech company, with a preference for the investment management area, where 17,4% relies exclusively on digital players and 27,4% use them in addition to traditional operators.
Digital financial services are especially successful among younger, affluent and tech-savvy customers. Geographically, the most passionate about FinTech are the Chinese and Indians, with 84% and 77% of respondents respectively stating that they use the financial services offered by digital operators. The United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and China follow, while the least inclined are the Dutch and the Belgians.
FINTECH AND TRADITIONAL PLAYERS: WHAT FUTURE?
In the meantime, the latter seem to have become aware of the advance of FinTech and are taking steps to face the competition. Of course, the future dynamics of the relationship between traditional operators and FinTech companies is not yet very clear. Looking outside the world of finance, we see that in some cases technological advances have had a devastating impact, for example by spelling the end of printed photographs and film rental. But in other cases, innovation has been able to coexist with tradition – e-books and paper books are an example.
In the financial sector, the report notes, the majority of traditional players (60%) today consider FinTech companies as potential partners, but almost the same proportion (59,2%) are developing their own internal functions to keep up with the times . Other avenues explored by traditional institutes are investments in FinTechs (38%), partnerships with educational institutions (34,3%) or the creation of accelerators (29,6%). Finally, 18,6% are proceeding with the acquisition of FinTech companies.
