Top fintech predictions for 2018
Here’s some crystal ball gazing, courtesy of KPMG’s global fintech team.
In its latest Pulse of fintech report, released last week, the firm sets out 10 factors it reckons will drive financial technology this year, after $US31 billion of deals were struck in 2017. There are now 25 fintech unicorns around the world, collectively valued at $US76 billion (none are from Australia).
On the KPMG list is the acceleration of artificial intelligence technology and the growing number of devices connected to the internet of things. It expects AI and IoT enablement “to continue at a rapid pace” as financial services offerings are embedded into home automation systems.
A couple of its predictions relate to regulation. With the so-called PSD2 regime having kicked off in Europe last month, and with “open banking” on the menu in Australia too, application programming interfaces (APIs) are set to play a more dominant role and allow more third party developers to tap data to win customer relationships.
KPMG also sees more digital banks emerging, either run by the incumbents (like National Australia Bank’s UBank) or start-ups (like Xinja, which is seeking a bank licence under new Australian Prudential Regulation Authority rules).
In Europe, fintechs including Klarna, Zopa and Revolut have recently applied for banking licences to expand product offerings. Four of the predictions for fintech in 2018 relate to particular niches gaining more traction with investors. These are insurtech, regtech, proptech and blockchain.
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