First, bitcoin cryptocurrencies
The price of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, has hit record highs in 2017 and continues to generate public interest, and the trend will continue in 2018. Many potential public-sector investors may also announce investment in cryptocurrencies, Or set up a cryptocurrency fund, some brokers, banks and other traditional financial institutions, will join the fray.
However, the record does not mean that investment is easy, not the same as the bank account lost PIN code can still be re-entered at any time, encrypting the private assets of the currency once lost, it may lead to the loss of assets forever.
Second, the regulatory agencies law enforcement
Many regulators have taken a laissez-passer approach to cryptocurrencies and have shown that they will intervene in the event of a security incident, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) declaring DAO tokens to be marketable after The DAO was hanged The relevant provisions of the US Securities Act is one example; future regulatory agencies will enforce the law on security incidents will be more high profile, in order to establish a negative text currency encryption.
Tax authorities will also become more pro-active, especially in the areas where cryptocurrency hiked, such as the recent request of the U.S. Inland Revenue Department to require a major cryptocurrency exchange in the country to provide the name of the trading account holder as the active involvement of the tax authorities sign.
Third, ICO institutionalized
The first batch of tokens (ICO) raised more than $ 3 billion in 2016, attracting public attention as a darling of the media, but the industry is going to be further institutionalized, especially with 'know your customers' (KYC) Anti-money laundering (AML), governance and transparency standards, so the ICO fanaticism may cool down slightly in 2018.
Fourth, compliance technology
Focusing on more compliance with regulatory obligations and reducing risk and costs, RegTech will generate increased interest from financial institutions, however, as law and compliance teams are not familiar with compliance technology and become compliance technology Development; in addition, the lack of dominating players in the compliance science and technology sector will result in further consolidation in this area, and compliance tech startups are likely to be acquired by traditional technology companies that do not want to fall behind the trend.
Fifth, a new team
Innovative teams within banks have played a crucial role in the early days of financial technology and led banks to work with fintech startups, but as banking executives become more familiar with financial technology, many fintech start-ups may avoid Innovative teams come into contact with and handle the business independently, saving time and energy and continuing to think of innovation as a thinking model for the entire organization, without being limited by the innovation team.
Six, regulatory science and technology
Supervisory Technology (SupTech) is a means for regulators to effectively enforce regulations and reduce compliance burdens. Many regulators have been testing data analysis and AI tools to detect not only market manipulation but also a large number of Compliance documents such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore are conducting a machine-readable template compliance reporting study.
Seven, API
Open API is still the top priority of financial technology in 2018, both the EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's open API architecture are noteworthy. The traditional bank's status is still challenged, but consumers Whether technology companies trust the same as traditional banks is still worth watching.
Eight, intelligent voice assistant
According to the Juniper Research study, 55% of households in the United States will have intelligent voice assistants by 2022, and voice-oriented user interfaces have gradually become accepted. Intelligent voice assistants such as Amazon's Echo, Google Home, and Baidu's " Fish at home ', Alibaba's Lynx Wizard X1 has gradually into everyday life.
In recent years, there have been many cases in which the financial industry has used Chatbot. It is expected that financial institutions will continue to experiment with the best integrated solution for customers. The solution to converging voice assistants may be the next trend.
Nine, the Asian market
Asia leads the world in B2C financial technology, mainly due to the mainland technology Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent continue to create new ways of financial services to the public; there is potential in B2B Asia, but not necessarily related to innovation, but the Asian financial institutions The high acceptance of integrated finance technology gives B2B financial technology companies a great chance of bringing products or services developed in the West to the East and using Hong Kong or Singapore as a springboard.
Ten, information security
The biggest hurdle in the development of financial technology could be major events such as cyber-attacks on consumers' money or fraud that causes bank or public trust in financial technology to decline, such as the Mt. Gox In 2014, about 850,000 bitcoins (about 450 million U.S. dollars) were stolen.
Not only have recent bank attacks on cyber-attacks been frequent, hackers also love finding newer ICOs because they may lack security infrastructure.