For the financial technology industry, the following phenomena appear in 2017: the threat from technology giants has intensified, the importance of artificial intelligence has been highlighted, and some start-up companies have applied to become financial institutions such as banks.
What will people expect from financial technology in 2018? Perhaps more mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings, as well as the deeper integration of Amazon and Facebook into daily life, and looking at industry experts' forward-looking forecasts:
Pay
In the payment arena, everyone's eyes are on how to help retailers build an ecosystem to handle credit card transactions, and industry players such as First Data Corp., Vantiv Corp. and JPMorgan's merchant services have long focused on developing large Entrepreneurial retailer clients, who are often overwhelmed and frustrated with the ever-expanding field of e-commerce, have created a space for start-ups such as Stripe Inc. and Adyen BV to reap the rewards of winning The high valuation.The question now is: What is the next way consumers buy? How to seize business opportunities in the industry?
Matt Harris of Bain Capital pointed out that 'Softbank invested $ 3 billion to acquire a 20% stake in the Strip, and PayPal continues to promote itself as the financial service of choice after the 1980s and in the mass market the company. '
Dion Lisle of Capgemini SA believes that 'payment will be done by voice because it is extremely secure.'
loan
2017 was a turbulent year for investors in the field of online lending, with companies in the industry not paying enough attention to losses and leading players such as LendingClub and CAN Capital were busy coping with operational problems and facing financing difficulties, and experts predict that their days next year May not be better.Bank finally act together, which means that online lenders have more and more large financial institutions have to start a positive competition.
Dan Ciporin of Canaan Partners said that "as the scale of the business is increasingly becoming a barrier to competition, existing businesses such as LendingClub and SoFi must now compete with banking products such as Marcus Personal unsecured network loan platform).
Spencer Lazar of General Catalyst Partners said: 'The CFPB's policy on non-bank lenders under the Trump administration is likely to return to the Obama era. It will make it easier for emerging lending institutions to make money easier, but people worry interest rates could be a negative factor. "
Amazon vs Morgan
Retailers like Wal-Mart have long been hoping to get involved in the banking sector, regulators may eventually be on their side or open the door to Amazon's banking or Facebook finance, and if the technology giants do decide to go to the financial industry, Banks have more advantages, mainly reflected in: better data, excellent user experience and a wide range of customer loyalty.
Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures believes that companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple will further explore small business online financing. '
Jeff Richards of GGV Capital said that Facebook has rolled out Messenger payments to compete with Square Cash and Venmo but is not positive enough in this business. Greater efforts may force the company to focus on payment functionality. '
Spark Capital's Jeremy Philips believes that "several tech giants have been slow in the past, but with the rapid changes in the Chinese payment system, they have had to develop rapidly." Facebook, Apple and others are redoubling their efforts , Copying China's successful experience to the United States. '
M & A
While some areas of financial technology are 'well-deserved', there is still more room to open up and some are expected to see some new business combinations in terms of lending, payments and personal finance.
Tyler Sosin of Monroe believes that 'Stripe and Adyen will merge, bringing the value of the company's assets to more than $ 20 billion and the business model being API driven.'
Sean Park, of Anthemis Group, said: 'We think 2018-209 could be a period of multiple mergers and acquisitions as it has become part of a mature ecosystem in which people are expected to be See a lot of combinations. '
Brendan Wallace of Fifth Wall Ventures said that "a lot of common online loan start-ups will go bankrupt or be taken cheap by big financial institutions."
asset Management
In the past 12 months, a number of new hybrid investment patterns have emerged in the market, the main feature of which is the technical support provided by human beings for robot investment advisors. Large banks are moving in this direction and both Morgan Stanley and Morgan have announced that they will Robot investment as a means to attract younger generations in order to create a better user experience.
Although start-ups can take these opportunities from scratch, and gradually grow, but Wall Street can easily reverse the situation, used for what I used.Maybe the bank decided to cooperate with start-ups, teamed up to defeat the technology giant? Not yet known.
Kyle Lui of DCM Ventures believes that "the digital consulting asset management business is expected to reach $ 1 trillion in size by 2020. Traditional banks are aware of this trend and include the growth strategy for consumption of digital and robot consultants into asset management 'S core part.
According to Alois Pirker of Aite Group, "It's becoming increasingly difficult for start-ups to engage in wealth management, and I think you should learn about product innovation, More and more use their own weapons, because large companies can do more variety, have a certain customer base.
Financing
According to CB Insights, venture capital investment in financial technology companies has reached $ 4 billion in the third quarter alone in 2017. Global investment in financial technology and trading activities could hit the threshold if investment rates remain stable this year If so, what are the areas where funds will be concentrated?
Alex Rampell of the Andreessen Horowitz argues that 'the first phase of financial technology development is' spin-off' of banks - which focus on one function of the big banks , And do a better job.The next phase is repackaging - adding other services, cross-selling products (eg SoFi to borrow money and later finance and insurance) Venture capital flows to successful start-up companies to assist them The second action to finish repacking.
Charles Birnbaum of Bessemer Venture Partners said: 'In our opinion, the valuation of alternative lending business was overly optimistic five years ago, but we think recent adjustments Excessive overkill, the industry potential investment or mergers and acquisitions has matured.