FinTech

What is FinTech?

Financial technology ("FinTech") generally refers to digital innovation in the financial sector. At its inception, the understanding of FinTech was limited to innovative ways of facilitating payments and transactions. Underpinned by revolutionary shifts in Internet and mobile technology in recent years, the realm of FinTech has witnessed explosive growth. Nowadays, it refers to a wide variety of technological interventions within the financial services arena, such as crowdfunding, online customer acquisition, mobile wallets, P2P lending, MPOS, MSME services, personal financial management, private financial planning, Blockchain and crypto currencies.

Given the opportunities that FinTech affords, many technology companies have been actively trying to tap into the financial market. As such, FinTech is also used to describe businesses that aim at providing financial services by making use of software and modern technology. 

Remember those days back in childhood when you'd build sand castles, only to knock them over in a second and build them again from scratch? In the realm of Fintech, companies in places such as Britain, Switzerland, Abu Dhabi, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong can now build their own 'sand castles' by experimenting with the creation of proof-of-concepts in a space where they do not have to fulfil compliance standards. This space is known as a Fintech 'sandbox', which provides firms with an incentive to truly innovate without the fear of violating regulatory hurdles, to refine and improve their products based on preliminary feedback, and to navigate the muddy waters of an ever-changing financial services sector before officially launching new products into the market.