Columnist

Fintech set to boom in the UK

We live in a changing world and with so much technology at our fingertips, the whole financial world has been revolutionised. It could be said that the credit crunch has acted as a bit of a wake up call for consumers everywhere and many of us are no longer willing to bow at the hands of large corporation banks. Although it is nothing on the scale of large banks, Fintech has and is continuing to change the way we bank and we are sure to see a huge boom in the UK in the very near future.

What is Fintech?

You probably make use of Fintech for your banking but unless you are working in the financial sector, it is unlikely you have a lot of knowledge on the word. Fintech is basically financial services technology and covers everything from mobile payments to currency exchanges and lenders. Lenders such as Fleximize make use of Fintech to improve the way they do business by offering flexible solutions to their customers. This entails using advanced technology to streamline the funding process and make it much smoother and sleeker than ever before. Of course, banks such as Natwest and Barclays can offer lending to businesses, but Fleximize offer a payment plan which is revenue based; something different from most large banks.

Fintech Investment

The total global investment into Fintech companies has continued to increase in growth and the last few years has seen a larger growth than the whole investment to date. This shows the extent to which Fintech is rising and why more people than ever are beginning to stand up and take notice. This year the global investment has been at its highest yet, with around $1.7 billion invested. It is looking likely that global investment will continue to grow, with around $8 billion predicted by the year 2018. There is no reason why this can’t happen, as we have seen an increase every year since 2008 and the pattern is looking likely to be repeated going forward. In the midst of the global rise, the UK will also benefit from investments in Fintech and it certainly looks like it is going to remain for the foreseeable future. We seem to be changing the way we look at businesses and small and medium sized businesses are at the forefront of these new advancements. Without these businesses, we are relying on huge corporations and as we have seen during the economic downturn, this is perhaps not the right approach. The truth is that Fintech is booming and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Boom

So what is the reason for the boom? Fintech is designed to help reduce costs for businesses and individuals and this is why interest and investment is at an all-time high. Consider your local hairdressers or bakers who don’t have the money required to run credit card machines. The ‘cash only’ policy can easily ruin a business as how many of us really carry a lot of cash on us these days? With Fintech, payments can be made directly from our mobiles and as a result, small businesses won’t lose out. An easy, effective and simple way to make payments is at our fingertips, 24 hours a day. It is thought that banking and securities institutions will spend as much as $486 billion on IT in 2014 and with the constant additions in open source software and cloud technology, there has never been more of a demand. Should this boom in Fintech make bankers worried? This remains to be seen but we can only hope that this rise changes things for the better for consumers in the UK and globally.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Will Hemner .