FIN-TECH : IS IT WORTH THE BUZZ?

Fin-tech: Is it worth the buzz?

By- Madhav Maheshwari

Fin-tech comes from two words : financial and technology and when we narrow it down, it means the usage of technology in the finance industry. Finance and technology come together to offer new and innovative solutions to businesses and to help financial services organizations to better serve their customers. Fin-tech is not any single software but a collective term for technologies like block-chain, biometrics, artificial intelligence, mobile applications, e-commerce, and more.

For illustration:
People very often use and make payments digitally through Paypal, google pay, etc. all of this is being facilitated with the integration of financial technology.
Whenever you surf or invest in securities such as stocks, bonds, that’s fin-tech.

How it can help businesses?
Fin-tech allows access to increasingly digitalize customer base easily as a result the technology somehow interacts in a much better way with the stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers. It helps the companies in managing their financial aspects and several business models with the integration of such different technologies and hence ends up providing a much better interface for businesses.
In recent years the use of fin-tech has grown significantly not just by banking or financial institutions but several other businesses also. Fin-tech is not new and it has been around us as long as the tech services exist which is over a decade.
The emergence of fin-tech gained pace soon after the global financial crisis of 2008, it started to evolve and reshape commerce, banking, payment services, asset management, securities settlement and even cryptocurrency such as bitcoin.
When we talk about banking institutions they have almost evolved into technology companies and most of the money investment is made into the research and development of different technologies. Due to such evolution in typical services, even the customers now expect everything to be flawless and quick whether it’s a loan approval, online purchase, or payment services.

Restructurizarion of businesses through FIN-TECH
Fin-tech is revolutionizing the concept of business and there are several technologies which you should know of such as:

1- Machine learning and Artificial intelligence– The ultimate combination of these two technologies have made identifying fraudulent transactions a piece of cake. The software generates a quickest possible approach to tackle a breach or odd activity. With the continuous emergence in the sophistication of attacks, the human way of doing it can cost a huge amount of big money for businesses. Moreover, this technology keeps a historical record of activity patterns which leads to prediction in identifying an odd pattern and threats.

2- Biometrics– biometrics has not been limited to just fingerprints and face recognition. It has started to catch vocal patterns and irises to add an extra layer of security. Biometrics has become one of the best alternatives to multiple passcodes and financial institutions all over the world promote the usage of biometrics while making transactions more secure and hence providing the customer a better interface and approach.

3- Block-chain– The technology uses the distributed ledger system which uses stringent controls to make the storage and usage of data more transparent.it began to emerge in 2016 and is scaling heights and in the short run itself it is going to transform services for banks as well as customers because a customer values transparency and it uses a system of decentralization to make it difficult for a user to dominate over some network. It surely minimizes human error but it might still take years to become a low cost and affordable technology.

Conclusion
Fin-tech completely changed the whole ecosystem of services and that’s the reason it grew more sturdy even with huge amounts of implementing costs.
The e-commerce industry is the second most industry that has been affected favorably with the incoming of this technology. It has created a healthy environment for the e-firms but it has also hit hard the offline retailers where profits have taken a huge dump due to the continuous emergence of e-commerce.

Today fin-tech has its reach into most of the aspects of a human life. From banking, shopping to online payments, customer chatbots, and other services.
It has been increasingly scaling upwards in the chain and shortly, the technology might have something even bigger for the humans.