Fin Tech
Fin Tech
Since the internet revolution and the mobile internet revolution, however, financial
technology has grown explosively, and fintech, which originally referred to computer
technology applied to the back office of banks or trading firms, now describes a broad variety
of technological interventions into personal and commercial finance.
According to EY's Fintech Adoption Index, one-third of consumers utilize at least two or more
fintech services and those consumers are also increasingly aware of fintech as a part of their
daily lives.
Fintech Users
Who uses fintech? There are four broad categories: 1) B2B for banks and 2) their
business clients; and 3) B2C for small businesses and 4) consumers. Trends toward
mobile banking, increased information, data and more accurate analytics and
decentralization of access will create opportunities for all four groups to interact in
heretofore unprecedented ways.
Blockchain
Blockchain is the technology that enables the existence of
cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is the name of the best-known cryptocurrency, the one for
which blockchain technology was invented. A cryptocurrency is a medium of
exchange, such as the US dollar, but is digital and uses encryption techniques to
control the creation of monetary units and to verify the transfer of funds.
Blockchain also has potential applications far beyond bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Blockchain is, quite simply, a digital, decentralized ledger that keeps a record of all
transactions that take place across a peer-to-peer network. The major innovation is
that the technology allows market participants to transfer assets across the Internet
without the need for a centralized third party.
How is the Fintech Industry leveraging Blockchain?
In a way, cryptocurrencies are a part of the Fintech Industry and their entire business
model is based on blockchain, wherein they offer virtual currency to anyone who can
purchase parts of one unit of that currency and keep trading with that part, thereby
making money in the process. Buying cryptocurrencies is also considered as a long-
term investment by many. The beauty of these virtual currencies is that fact that
because they have been built on blockchain, they are decentralized in the sense that
there is no central bank governing them.
In Brazil, recently they have managed to lower exchange rates in the currency and
bullion markets using blockchain. There are exchange start-ups who are leveraging
blockchain based efficient automation processes to lower exchange rates.
Because of its existing nature of application, blockchain has been at the forefront of
some path breaking innovation done by Fintech start-ups across the world. Whether
it is money transfers, currency exchanges or organizations providing infrastructure
and transaction protocols that enables banks to provide financial settlement at lower
rates, Blockchain is driving new age innovations across the Fintech landscape.
3. Insurances Management
Insurance management with AI systems will automate the underwriting process and
utilize more crude information to make better decisions for the customers. Automated
agents can assist the user online, in determining insurance requirements.
Cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. A
cryptocurrency is difficult to counterfeit because of this security feature. A defining
feature of a cryptocurrency, and arguably its most endearing allure, is its organic
nature; it is not issued by any central authority, rendering it theoretically immune to
government interference or manipulation.
There are technically over 1000 cryptocurrencies, only a handful are relevant. Of
those, even less have a market cap above $1 million.
The most relevant cryptocurrencies are:
1. Bitcoin: Bitcoin was the first major usable cryptocurrency, it has the highest
market cap, its coins generally trade at the highest cost of all cryptocurrencies
(about $16000 USD as of Jan 2018). Despite the big increase in price, Bitcoin
is the best choice for anyone entering the cryptocurrency space. It is the most
familiar and invested-in coin, it’s a lot of things. primarily Bitcoin is the reason
anyone is talking about cryptocurrency in the first place.
2. Litecoin: Litecoin is probably the second most important digital coin. It had
the third-highest market cap as of June 2015, but today it sits closer to 7.
Despite the decline, CPU mining is still sort of possible, people know what a
Litecoin is, it uses essentially the same technology of Bitcoin, and it costs
about 1/50th – 1/100th of what Bitcoin does.
3. Ethereum: Is probably the third most important coin.It has a less costly than
Bitcoin, and has the second highest market cap.
4. BitcoinCash and Bitcoin Gold: BitcoinCash is a spin-off of bitcoin, meant to
have faster transactions, voted on and implemented by the Bitcoin community.
Bitcoin Gold is also a spin-off, the goal with that coin is to have a coin that can
be mined with a GPU (graphics processor, like the ones AMD and NVIDA
make)