Future of Payments – FinTech Consumer Payment Technology

Nowadays, it’s rare to meet someone who doesn’t utilize some form of financial technology innovation. Great innovator firms, financial institutions, and startups have done a tremendous amount of work to come up with new, clever concepts that will make the process simple, effective, and secure for us. Different Fintech financing platform companies are supporting consumer financing and BNPL as well. We may sum up the technological advancements by comparing the payment experience to that of the previous generation. Twenty to thirty years ago, people were still paying with cash. Today, we have click-to-play, biometrics, and QR code payments, and occasionally we forget what a terrific job some businesses have done in this area.

According to Dealroom.com reports from Q1 2022 Fintech startups raised $32.4B globally in the first part of 2022 which is up 27% year on year. And crypto startups have raised 7.0B this year already. The Crypto segment is growing faster than any other which is 2.4x compared to last year. Those statistics show how some new startups and experienced companies trust Fintech and think that it is the future of payments globally.

How Fintech Gained its Ground

Over the past 20 years, the forerunners in fintech have fundamentally altered the payment ecosystem. Different things can now be purchased, sold, and paid for in ways that were before unthinkable. Not to mention credit and debit cards, several smartphone applications, and online banking platforms, which allow us to conduct digital payments and transactions in the most secure manner ever imaginable, crypto and Defi payments are introduced to various customer financing platforms on a daily basis. When before applying at the banks would take days or weeks, we can now easily apply for POS financing and Buy Now Pay Later choices with our applications whenever we need money.

FinTechs can make use of open Application Programming Interfaces thanks to PSD2, an EU policy that strives to match payment regulation with the constantly evolving payment technologies (APIs). Without a doubt, the fastest FinTech players were also taking advantage of this. This was accomplished by implementing a smooth payment system and turning our interactions with public transportation, food delivery services, and retail stores into games of identification instead of games of money.

Fintech is Still Growing

According to the Global Fintech Adoption Index 2019, before the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic, FinTech adoption doubled every two years. The pandemic changed the game, and FinTech played a key role in making digital payments possible as customers quickly shifted to contactless and online purchasing.

Numerous causes over the past ten years have contributed to the rapid advancement of financial technologies. Fintech advancements are affecting almost every aspect of financial activity. Fintech innovations have undergone a substantial transformation as a result of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and several financial applications. Due to innovations and various consumer financing options that were introduced as a result of new startups and technologies, Fintech companies gained ground among big financial companies. This gave them a great opportunity to compete with the market’s already established giants and banking institutions.

Many banks already collaborate with FinTech companies to improve their service offerings. Companies are becoming aware that consumers are becoming less loyal to brands and more interested in speed, accuracy, transparency, and new technologies. Businessofapps.com reports that during the pandemic, downloads of Fintech apps rose by 132% internationally, further demonstrating that people value and favor quick and reliable financial solutions.

Fintech and Consumer Financing

Younger generations, who grew up with digital innovations, are more likely to trust fintech companies than older generations, who may be concerned about a cashless economy and an increase in digital financing options. Because of this, Fintech firms are focusing on younger generations who favor digital solutions, particularly as consumer finance is becoming more commonplace among them as well. Young people make up the vast majority of customers that use point of sale financing and BNPL, which forces fintech companies to collaborate with various financing platforms in order to satisfy the needs of this demographic.

Fintech technologies have been adopted by many customer financing platforms, which have achieved significant progress with them. The best part about it is that all the information is processed in a matter of seconds, allowing customers to receive funds from lenders very quickly. Multilender financing platform, ChargeAfter, one of the best and most prominent financial networks in the Buy Now Pay Later consumer financing industry, created a platform where customers are connected to the most reliable lenders. These types of cutting-edge networks are playing a significant role in progressing in the future and accelerating the necessary finance and payment processes, which is essential in today’s environment where everything happens so quickly.

Blockchain Becomes a Part of Fintech

Due to the key argumentative aspects of being decentralized, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are also becoming more and more popular among Millennials and Gen Zers. There are differences between the older and younger generations in this area as well because earlier generations were at ease with the degree of control exercised by the government and central banks. Younger generations today want financial independence and view decentralization as a benefit.

There are a huge amount of financial technology companies implementing the options of cryptocurrencies in their innovations when it was almost impossible to think of about ten years ago. This year’s Forbes Fintech 50 list—an honor roll of the most creative private Fintech companies—featured a record nine cryptocurrency-focused businesses. These nine trailblazing entrepreneurs have collectively raised $6.5 billion in venture financing, with the majority of it arriving in the previous 12 months.

Security of Financial Technologies

Although speedier payment methods and innovations are a tremendous opportunity for us, they have also presented us with a new challenge: ensuring the security and protection of our assets. Due to the fact that all startups and Fintech innovations use the digital world to save customer information, there may be countless efforts at fraud cyber-attacks to steal the money of users of digital services. Therefore, all cutting-edge businesses must develop secure methods of interacting with their services.

It is also crucial to mention that many businesses in the consumer financing sector, which provide their customers with BNPL and customer financing choices, collaborate with numerous unaffiliated lenders. Due to fraud incidents in previous years, the multilender financing platform ChargeAfter exclusively works with reliable lenders to ensure the protection of its consumers and that all financing operations are carried out precisely and smoothly.

Future of Financial Technologies

It’s clear that nothing will ever be the same as we move ahead. The fact that many of the changes we might expect are optimistic may be less clear. It is expected that increased accessibility for neglected customers—and expanding client bases for enterprises will result from the increasing acceptance of cloud service and the use of technology to connect businesses and consumers directly.

“2022 will probably be a big year of doing off the back of that. There are a lot of opportunities that are enabled by that amount of capital. It’s important to remember that the dust will settle around a couple of the areas, like providing real value to your end customer.” Said George Robson, Partner at Sequoia.

Traditional financial institutions are increasingly looking to FinTech to assist them in shifting their service offerings online as consumers embrace the digital economy. The Future of FinTech brings together opinion makers from across the FinTech industry to talk about how the financial services business has evolved, and to offer their perspectives on how the most recent technological advancements may support the sector during this transition.

There are many problems to be resolved to get toward a fully cashless society. These include the marginalization of cash users as well as technological issues with network technologies, cybersecurity, data gathering, and privacy laws. However, we observe that the FinTech entrepreneurs in our area are attempting to use their technology to address every problem.

Although this won’t replace conventional retail and standard financial institutions, there is still room for new companies in the long run. Collaboration between small businesses and established organizations can help achieve this, and it is obvious that this is the path we are taking.

While there are still many obstacles to overcome, this won’t happen quickly, but we should fully anticipate improvements in convenience, efficiency, and safety to the way we conduct business as a means of advancing society.

About ChargeAfter

ChargeAfter is a leading multi-lender platform for Buy Now pay later (BNPL) Consumer Financing. It connects businesses with the most reliable lenders, enabling them to offer customers the greatest financing solutions. With the best system of Waterfall Financing, ChargeAfter guarantees BNPL lending to every shopper, by matching the most relevant lender to every client. Using the unique consumer financing technology, ChargeAfter provides all parties, merchants, lenders, and consumers, with the best shopping experience. Phoenix, MUFG, VISA, Bradesco, BBVA, Synchrony, PICO Partners, CITI, Propel Venture Partners, Plug and Play, and other companies worldwide are among the investors of ChargeAfter.