Studying the properties and composition that make up the FinTech ecosystem
Welcome to this week’s industry analysis with the FinTech Chemist. While I may not be literally mixing solutions and preparing reagents, I am studying and testing out the latest and greatest in FinTech. I recently attended the LendIt Fintech USA conference in San Francisco, and here’s what I was able to formulate over the two days:
Just like how the quantum theory ripped apart stereotypical notions of physics and destroyed common ideas around concepts of reality, FinTech has done something similar within the ecosystem. Constantly challenging the status quo, and evolving to anticipate business and consumer needs, LendIt certainly shed light on this phenomenon.
Digital banking is no longer a theory; in fact, it has evolved to become part of our everyday lives. According to Stash CEO Brandon Krieg, since 2015, they have had over 5 million subscribers. The reason they’ve been so successful is that they’ve studied the consumer, and discovered that the average person wants to live a better financial life. Their average user is 29 years old and makes $50k a year. With their app alone, they’ve made it easy for people to invest and learn about it. A common theme throughout the event was financial literacy and the fact that consumers aren’t getting what they want out of traditional FinServ products, and they’re not catering to helping the middle class (sounds a bit like politics, right?).
Now, we don’t need to solve E = mc2 to understand that companies are hyper-focused on personalization. As the digital bar continues to be raised, the successful ones are meeting the customer where they are and are
