Fintech advances as companies increasingly adopt it.
The world of finance is already undergoing a radical transformation, and one of its main subsets, the banking industry, is at the leading edge of this rapid-fire quick change. Within the next half-decade, we’ll see some major leaps in security, transaction speed, fraud protection, encryption, biometrics, analytical apps that do almost everything, robotics, and more. As an employee, entrepreneur, or policymaker, are you ready for the brave new universe of a financial sector powered by digital technologies? If you feel like you need to catch up, the first thing to do is survey the situation.
Assess your skills, find out how to fill in your education gaps, build up your personal network, and learn as much as possible about the dozens of ways the landscape is changing. What is the role of high-tech processes in the financial field? How can you get a degree that positions you at the ideal place among thousands of competitors? Finally, what are the hottest and most prevalent trends that are completely reorganizing how money is made, stored, accounted for, protected, and leveraged?
Here are some concise answers to those questions so you can get ready to ride the high-tech fintech wave as it grows and begins to pick up even more momentum.
Getting the Right Degree and Paying for Your Education
In the fast-moving fintech job environment, having the right education is the first piece of the success puzzle for workers and entrepreneurs. Like it or not, getting a relevant college or master’s degree matters. It’s the single most efficient way of proving to prospective employers that you are serious about success and properly trained in the basics and at least a few advanced techniques.
But your priority is not choosing the right major. It’s about paying for the cost of schooling, which can be significant in this era when a diploma is actually an employment ticket of sorts. The good news is that there are different finance options, money for education, and sensible ways to acquire all the funding you need to cover school costs.
For many future managers and CEOs, the most efficient way to pay for college or grad school is with a student loan from a private lender. The key advantage of this strategy is that private lenders have the flexibility to offer you as much as you need for degrees of all kinds, at any school you choose. Plus, private loans come with competitive interest rates, realistic payback periods, and terms that fit nicely into a new grad’s budget during those first few years in the working world.
Fintech at the Forefront
Financial technology, often abbreviated as fintech, is a shorthand way of denoting the unique relationship between two very different realms of human activity: technology and finance. The “T” is the power source, the fuel that propels the financial services industry forward. The “tech” piece is the unique marriage of methods also helps professionals deliver a multitude of services at the speed of light. Fintech has many faces, including specialized software, instant money transfer, on-demand banking, securities analysis for busy traders, tax solutions for accountants, and loan applications for any number of purposes.
Trends That are Already Changing the World
The trends currently leading the way in fintech include astoundingly helpful many productivity apps, fully automated cloud computing, AI/ML in all their variations, voice-based technologies, the Internet of Things (aka IoT), 5G, blockchain, and more. What can they do? Here’s a shortlist:
· AI/ML: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning used widely in areas like regulatory and legal compliance, credit scores and ratings, wealth consultation and management, and the detection of multiple types of fraudulent behavior. The potential of AI is unlimited and the whole AI/ML sphere is the subject of much academic speculation about the growth of non-human intelligence in ways that were once only spoken about in science fiction literature.
· Blockchain: Used not just as the basis of the entire cryptocurrency market but to safely store highly sensitive data, records of complex transactions, and prevent cyber-attacks and hacks on financial institutions . Perhaps the fastest growing use of blockchain is in the creation and verification of secure contracts between individuals and organizations. As the use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to mushroom, blockchain is taking on a more prominent role in the fintech industry.
· Mobile Payment Apps: Not the highest of high-tech but certainly the most widely used, mobile apps touch all of our lives through the use of e-commerce, banking, and investing. Payment gateways and applications have the unique power to allow humans to bank, engage in stock trading, invest, and make online purchases without being physically present at the store, brokerage office, or bank.
With each passing month, some new form or variant of fintech appears, fills a consumer need, and takes its place among the pantheon of an industry that refuses to stand still.
