We are now in the last chapter and we’ll discuss how Fintech is changing the business. The mighty financial technology is reshaping our lives by bringing innovation to almost every walk of life. From the inception of crowd funding to personal budgeting to cryptocurrency, Fintech has proven to be an urn of hundreds of new and practical ideas. This is due to the usefulness of the Fintech that capitalists and institutional investors are placing their trust in this industry by investing millions and billions of dollars.
This chapter is more like an overview of the Fintech industry and its bounties which are making it as one of the most-liked sectors of business. First of all, the Fintech has totally redefined the way we used to pay. Did you ever consider swiping your card in the flea market or a yard sale? Of course not. It was something which was once thought of as unbecoming. With the companies like Stripe and Square, the people can now make smaller transaction irrespective of wherever they are.
Talking about latest financial trends and not mentioning the role of cryptocurrency, would be an utter injustice to the readers and the domain itself. Bitcoin got itself introduced in the Fintech industry in the year 2009. It came to the forefront and marked several milestones all in once, one after another. The inception of cryptocurrency laid the foundation of the notorious yet widely sought-after idea of anonymity in the domain of electronic payments.
Currently, the cryptocurrency has gone far beyond than the Bitcoin miners and financial organizations are trying to explore the block-chain technologies in order to find out how beneficial these ideas can prove in successfully furthering their business. Let’s clear the concept of block-chain here because this is something which we will be using in our upcoming articles. It is a type of financial technology which is used to drive the Bitcoin by recording the transactions in a central repository, normally a database itself. In other words, it acts a ledger of the data which is used in the Bitcoin transactions. The main aim of this technology is to keep a track of the currency but the privilege of tracking down the money won’t be made available for everyone.
In another discipline, Fintech has put an end to the business which needed hefty amounts from the owner himself. It can be inferred that Fintech has put a full-stop to the idea of sole-proprietorship. By introducing the idea of crowdfunding, Fintech has become the only business domain which is crowned to have fathered crowdfunding based start-ups like, GoFundMe, Patreon, Indiegogo and much more. Apart from crowdfunding, Fintech also tops in promoting the peer-to-peer lending business by initiating start-ups like Lending Club and Prosper. On these sites, the applicants applying for a loan have to bid on a certain business share while keeping into consideration many factors which qualify a specific share to be invested in.
Yet another field where the Fintech is changing people’s financial messes is the field of budgeting. Nobody loves making a budget plan for the whole month because nobody wants to live a financially calculated life. People seldom understand that budgeting helps in the betterment of their own financial health and stands them out of the needy crowd. In order to maintain the budget, there are apps nowadays, most important of which are, Mint and YNAB (You Need a Budget). With these apps, you can now input your overall earnings per month or per annum. After inputting the earnings, you can create several categories and list the tasks where you think the money will be spent. The app will allocate a certain budget to be spent on a daily basis apart from those areas where the money is mandatory to be spent. It will give you a complete report on the inflow and outflow of the money. This way, you will be updated with every single penny you’ll spend which will aid in keeping a track of all your expenditures. It will also act as a payment-monitor and will beep the moment you go from normal spending to over spending.
Do you need a mortgage, a car loan, or want to stash your earnings in an interest-earning bank account? Do you want to pay via your phone or via credit card? Do you need some money to develop a prototype for the social welfare start-up which is going to start after a while?
No matter which industry you intend to join, always