2020 has been a great learning experience for all of us: we mastered remote working, online meetings, and virtual parties. For the finance and payments industry, it has opened the opportunity to move towards cashless, cleaner payments. Contactless payments turned out to be easily adopted even by older generations, reaching an all-time high level of adoption. While the global Covid-19 pandemic is still ongoing, businesses predict that the trend will continue even after we return to “normal” life. Let’s see what trends will it bring into FinTech in 2021.
1.Online payment platforms on the rise
With brick-and-mortar stores being closed, people elevated the online retail spending by up to five years, according to IBM. Many open stores have also eliminated cash payments, making their customers switch to contactless payments and P2P platforms. The use of platforms like Apple Pay by customers and the introduction of embedded contactless payment terminals such as Square by retailers has also reached exponential levels.
2.Blockchain benefits continue to grow
The increasing popularity of peer-to-peer transactions creates even more opportunities for blockchain technology to transfer the industry. Usually, payment transactions go through a central intermediary that uses many steps to authenticate and approve the person who is permitted to submit the value, pass the specifics of the transaction, and the actual settlement. Settlements can take 2 or 3 days to complete. The steps are compressed into one step by Blockchain, which can be achieved within a few seconds or minutes.
3.Demand for fintech-as-a-service platforms rises
Fintech platforms that offer API to enable banks or other FinTechs to integrate their service into operations will fill the gap between the banks and FinTechs partnerships. Banking-as-a-service has become a common concept (and service) and refers to allowing a business to integrate banking services into its offerings. However, companies should not get confused by the name, banking-as-a-service can be implemented by private or business entities, as well as financial institutions.
Crassula Banking will get you covered, whether you are launching your own banking, e-wallet, or want to easily embed FinTech solutions into your product. Open API allows businesses to offer connectivity and endless integration possibilities. At the same time, Crassula eCommerce API allows merchants to integrate checkouts with only several lines of code or use REST API for integration in a server-to-server mode.
4.Digital-first banks outperforming their rivals
Unsurprisingly, banks that had a mobile or online presence already built before the pandemic are outperforming those who have had to build such services from scratch. These predominantly are smaller players racing to get on board. Historically, however, digital transformation has had a bit of an issue: A J.D. Power survey conducted earlier in 2020 found that six large banks began the year with slightly higher levels of digital interaction relative to regional and medium-sized banks. Many credit unions providing small business services saw large increases in membership earlier this year, with several firms applying for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. However, there is still plenty of room for change if banking is going to be mainly online in the future.
Undoubtedly, being a technology sector, FinTech is an ever-evolving environment with a promising future. While the global pandemic has had more negative effects on the outside world, FinTech industry had a great opportunity to prove its inevitable predominance, thanks to the higher interest in cleaner payments. Therefore, all FinTech industry trends are likely to stick around for a long while.
