FinTech to TechFin: What Is With the Word Position Swap

September 29, 2020

I read an interesting essay called “A Look At The Power Shift From FinTech To TechFin.” I think the main idea is that banks are in the danger zone just as newspapers were and Main Street retail stores are.

I circled this passage:

With millennials becoming more and more comfortable using smartphones to pay for Uber, AirBnB, Amazon etc, the need for customer disintermediation arose and was well addressed by the FinTechs who had no overheads of physical distribution and were sitting on a lot of data. The ability to use non-traditional financial data, utilize SMS, utility bill payments and shopping history to build more accurate credit scoring helped the FinTech prove to be a credible challenge to the traditional lenders.

Okay. Thumbtypers on the march.

We also noted:

There is a need for an urgency to reposition and reinvent the traditional FinTech models as both, the customer expectation, as well as the landscape, is changing at lightning speed. There definitely would be tremendous action in the entire financial services space, including FinTech startups, within the next 2 years.

Several observations:

  • Big shoulder financial outfits may such oxygen out of the space; for example, Goldman and Apple
  • Regulators could — although it seems unlikely — might curtail monopolistic behavior in both banks and the rarified world of the FAANGs
  • Consumers like those who pay a penalty for being 99 percenters might propel social pushback with more momentum.

Yes, there is a need for adaptation. I am not sure a marketing pitch is going to get the result the author views as necessary.

Stephen E Arnold, September 29, 2020

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