At the core of the industry, the catalyst for fintech evolution has continued to be disruption and innovation, but not one banking or financial services issue can simply be resolved with only disruption or innovation.
After the global financial crisis of 2008, it would have been unusual to have more than one or two banking relationships.
However, the emergence of an open playing field, and with the application of the Second Payment Services Directive – more commonly known as PSD2 – across Europe, non-financial businesses were able to leverage open banking and open finance initiatives to offer financial services directly to their customers.
This, in turn, widened the competition and resulted in the birth of fintech businesses that each focused on attacking one part of the banking value chain – be it payments, lending, FX, or another type of offering. Slow, complex, and expensive processes were no longer the status quo; and alternative players started to disintermediate the incumbents.
These new entrants increasingly became popular because of their intention to improve customer experience and provide better products and services than the banks could – and in many cases, disruptors were both better and cheaper than the banks.
Additionally, new fintech channels and platforms have become viable competitors to traditional players, tempting consumers away from the institutions they trust in favour of better user experiences. Now it is not unusual for people to have up to 15 financial apps downloaded on to their mobile phones.
This Finextra impact study, produced in association with Banking Circle Group, explores the evolution of fintechs and Big Techs from unbundling towards rebundling of financial products and services to the benefit of customers, as well as providing examples for the modernisation of banks and financial institutions.