Fintech: how to profit as technology transforms banking around the world

Financial technology – from apps to APIs to the cloud – is rapidly transforming financial services. This will spell doom for some incumbent firms, while others are set to win big. Matthew Partridge looks at how to find the winners.

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Finance has used technology “since the days of the abacus”, as Philipp Buschmann, the chief executive of smart-banking platform AAZZUR, puts it. However, until a few years ago most financial firms and institutions remained relatively insulated from the digital revolution that had disrupted many other sectors of the economy. Even the rise of online banking had failed to challenge the dominant retail banks in the UK, while basic financial tasks such as processing payments or making cross border transactions still relied on the infrastructure created decades ago.

That’s changing – and changing fast. Customers are now much more comfortable carrying out a wide range of tasks through new channels such as apps. They are increasingly looking for the kind of convenience in financial services that they are getting elsewhere in the modern economy. The result is a fast-spreading financial technology (fintech) revolution.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri