Looking at today's fintech trends, it's hard to believe this is the same financial industry we saw 20 years ago. It seems the industry has been turned on its head several different times, with major upheavals coming in just the last few years. Thanks to new trends like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and mobile payments, financial technology is able to connect the different applications and services banks and financial industries are offering their customers. Here are a few fintech trends we're keeping an eye on in 2019 and beyond. Financial professionals and fintech companies would do well to see how they can assimilate these new technologies before they're passed by the early adopters who may later use them to dominate the entire industry.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been one of the hottest fintech trends for the last few years. Thanks to AI, financial institutions and wealth management professionals are able to offer so much more to their customers than they have ever been able. For one thing, AI has been a great help to lenders by looking at borrowers' financial data and credit history, including alternative data like utility and rent payments, and making a decision in a matter of seconds. What used to take banks and large lenders many weeks and months to manage is now done in seconds. Not only are banks using AI for lending, but third-party lenders and even credit card companies are offering loans and credit increases respectively, right from their mobile apps. No more filling out applications, the borrowers can connect the lending app right to their different financial assets and accounts, and the AI system will do the rest. Banks are also using AI to help personalize the kinds of lending and credit products they offer to their customers. Rather than creating generalized packages for different groups based on credit history, credit scores, and overall financial health, AI systems can now personalize offers to individual customers, creating products to suit their particular needs. Similarly, wealth management professionals are able to work with more clients, rather than only specializing in clients in a certain financial strata. In the past, wealth managers were only able to service a small number of clients because of the personalized nature of their recommendations, which took a lot of their time. Now, with an AI system, wealth managers can create more personalized recommendations for more people, letting them expand their client base.
Mobile Banking & Payments
Mobile banking is one of the more established fintech trends, although it's still not completely available to everyone. However, thanks to third-party fintech developers accessing financial institutions and various service providers and vendors, it's possible for consumers to handle most of their banking and bill paying by phone and tablet, as well as web-based solutions. As more Millennials become adults and Generation Z begins college and is poised to join the "adult" world, we're going to see an increased call for mobile banking including the ability to buy things, pay more bills, and transfer money through mobile payment apps like Venmo, PayPal, and Cash, as well as Google Pay and Apple Pay.
Chatbots and Voice Assistants
Instead of paying your bills or transferring money via your mobile phone, what if you could manage your finances with your favorite voice assistant? You could ask Siri, Alexa, or Google Home about your checking balance, to send $50 to someone else, or even pay your rent or cable bill with a simple voice command. Using the latest in artificial intelligence and voice skill development, many voice application and fintech developers are helping create one of the latest fintech trends to build the capabilities for consumers to interact with their banks and service providers with various voice assistants. Of course, security is still a big concern and you don't want someone to send themselves $200 while you're out of the room. There are confirmations and security checks that prevent you or someone else from sending money where it shouldn't go.
Blockchain
Blockchain may be one of the most important developments in security, especially when it comes to our money. Currently, most financial transactions are kept in a centralized store where they're (slightly) vulnerable to hackers and fraudsters who are looking to make changes to those transactions. Blockchain is a decentralized ledger of sorts where each transaction is stored in a few dozen servers around the world. When a new transaction is recorded, it's immediately synced on each of the blockchain servers. If one transaction on one server gets changed through a cyberattack, it's compared to all the other servers. If there's a discrepancy, the change is flagged and even prevented from taking place. So rather than changing a single entry in a single database, it's necessary (and therefore virtually impossible) to change each entry in each server at precisely the same moment, thus making fraud and theft so much more difficult.
Robotics/Automated Processes
Machine learning has enabled different fintech companies to provide a variety of services that help consumers better manage their finances and analyze their spending, as well as help banks analyze all of their data. One example of this kind of automated process is the way Envestnet | Yodlee® helps banks clean up their transactions with our Transaction Data Enrichment, turning them from garbled strings of characters into readable explanations of what a particular transaction might be. These are just a few of the fintech trends we're watching for 2019 and beyond. As computers get smarter and faster, the industry is going to be able to automate more of their processes, serve more customers, and better understand what it is consumers are looking for. If you would like to learn how to start putting AI to work for you and your customers in your own financial institution, please visit the Envestnet | Yodlee® website for more information. You can also contact us if you have any questions about our platform API, financial applications, and data offerings.
