There is no doubt that 2016 was a year full of surprises and pivotal moments. We will feel the repercussions of the past 12 months for years to come, in the 2017 fintech industry as well as across other sectors.
Of course, it is hard to predict what lies in store for 2017, but a New Year promises a fresh start and unearthed possibilities.
Here are the four main factors that those working in the 2017 fintech industry need to have in their mind’s eye:
(1) An intelligent future
Call centres and service lines are one of the biggest gripes for consumers, with “Your call is very important to us, please continue to hold extremely common, especially in financial services.
Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, however, the customer queries on a large scale can now be answered quickly and efficiently via a chatbot, with human help only required for the really tricky questions.
With consumers becoming more digitally-savvy and confident, they are becoming open to more technology-assisted services. The days when they would worry about a chatbot spying on them are, for the most part, long gone.
As a result, consumers” relationship with money will continue to evolve and we will see them become more confident with using ?robo-advisers” and wanting more interaction with technology.
Soon, the idea that we need to phone up our bank as part of the 2017 fintech industry to get things done will seem as antiquated as writing a cheque.
(2) Machine learning, making financial services a safer place
It is no secret that Tesco Bank had a huge security lapse a few months ago, and 2016 on the whole was another year of numerous banking fines for financial service players who didn?t abide by the rules of multi-million and multi-billion dollar consequences.
In addition to this, criminal sanctions for senior executives were also added into the mix in several countries this year. With so much at stake, compliance has become one of the biggest growth areas in financial services.
But given the vast amount of data that needs to be monitored and crunched, machine-learning technology is increasingly being applied to seek out and analyse trends and risks to keep us all safe.
Continue on the next page for a look at where low cost mobile and global events will fit into the 2017 fintech industry.
