Much has been written about the greatness of the UK fintech hub as one of the world-class locations that keeps setting global fintech trends.
The UK used to be THE global fintech hub, thanks to combined efforts by regulators, governments, the great tech and finance talent pool, and famous startups that were born here.
The UK sets trends in fintech
Regardless of UK-specific issues like Brexit, and the global COVID-19 crisis, which have hit our fintech industry hard, I still believe that the UK remains one of the top global fintech hubs with its overall entrepreneurial spirit still intact and going strong. The UK fintech industry will keep setting new trends and its initiatives, ideas and regulations will be copied or adapted by other fintech hubs and startups for years to come.
However, the global and UK fintech industry must further evolve from its initial approach to stay relevant and reach its true potential. Rather than just improving existing financial services offerings by incumbents; fintechs must go beyond what consumers expect from previous banking experiences.
COVID-19 Fintech innovations
The COVID-19 pandemic forces businesses to adapt and continuously innovate their business models. This brings good news for fintech startups and incumbents as customers are now more open to new technologies and solution offerings. The COVID-19 crisis has acted as a catalyst and forced consumer technology adoption to accelerate.
There are many fintech trends to talk about, but one segment in which I foresee enormous global growth and change potential is the wealth management industry.
Wealthtech developments
Wealthtech startups and established players will come up with new business models to satisfy ever-changing client demands. For companies in the wealthtech space, artificial intelligence (AI) will play a crucial technology role in remaining competitive and provide economic value to consumers such as predicting their needs and cost-effectively advising what they should do next. The use of AI in wealth management will also improve the user experience to the point where we won’t even think about the solutions we use, but rather use them effortlessly.
It is important that fintech startups and financial service companies do not lose sight of the ‘human experience’; they must continue to address and keep in mind the different phases and needs of the human experience.
Spiros Margaris is a venture capitalist, futurist, keynote speaker, and senior advisor to wefox Group, SparkLabs Global, Mediastalker, Yield Growth, and F10 Accelerator. He is the first international influencer to achieve “The Triple Crown” ranking. He was ranked the № 1 international FinTech, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) influencer (MAY 2018) by Onalytica. Spiros once again was ranked the № 1 global FinTech influencer (FEB 2020) by Onalytica. He regularly appears in the top three positions of established global industry influencer rankings. www.margarisventures.com
This article originally appeared in Business and Industry’s Fintech campaign.
Spiros Margaris, Margaris Ventures