10 FinTech Trends to Watch in 2018

Smart Money by lucasabia

1. Fintechs unbundling leads to rebundling

Unbundling to Rebundling
Over the last ten years, fintech startups have targeted single underserved financial products with better UI, digital marketing, and branding. Now, fintechs build, buy, and partner to grow becoming more aggressive in expanding their lines of business beyond their initial use case and creating next-gen investment platforms. (Source: CB Insights)

2. European fintechs will expand their global footprint

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In 2018, European banking startups from the UK and Germany may look to challenge US fintech for market share and tech talent.

3. Banks forgo partnering in favor of fighting fintech with fintech

incumbents
Over the last few years, banks including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan have actively invested in fintech startups across data analytics, infrastructure, alternative lending, personal finance management, and more. Now, more are talking up their own digital capabilities. (Pictured: Early incumbents backed wealth tech startups, Q1’12 – Q4’17 (11/14/17). Source: CB Insights).

4. Wealth management will become the hottest fintech sector in China

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“We are seeing the Chinese wealth management industry go through profound changes. It is
moving from fixed-income investments to equity investment, from short-term speculation to
long-term investment, from China-focused investment to global opportunities, from investing
into single products, single opportunity to comprehensive risk management and
comprehensive asset allocation, from managing this generation’s wealth to thinking about
succession planning and inheritance.” (Ning Tang, Founder and CEO CreditEase)

5. Latin America and Southeast Asia will see strong fintech growth

by the numbers
Addressing gaps in the traditional banking model. (Source: CB Insights)

6. More companies will look to sell pickaxes amid cryptoasset speculation

crypto
As crypto speculation continues, more companies will look beyond their initial use cases to enable and expand investment and trading. (Sources: Coinbase, Alistair Milne in CB Insights)

7. Capital markets fintech infrastructure becomes a focus area for investment

under-the-hood
Fintechs are going B2B with capital markets. (Source: CB Insights)

8. Banks deepen their partnerships with regtech

regtech
Banks are actively making investments in regtech in products & services that range from identification and background checking software to blockchain and trade monitoring. (Source: CB Insights)

9. Insurance tech investment moves to the back-end

Insurtech
Insurtech startups continued to be a hot area for fintech investment in 2017. (Source: CB Insights)

10. Amazon is primed to get more aggressive in fintech — outside of the US

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In Europe, Amazon runs product insurance white label Amazon Protect as the company is going deeper into payments in growth markets including India and Mexico. (Source: CB Insights)

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