Fintech – Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Digital Banking – The New Digital Technologies
The use of technology to make financial markets more efficient is one of Fintech’s priority objectives, a cutting-edge term that brings together all those companies dedicated to offering innovative financial services through new distribution channels.
Global investment in FinTech has been growing significantly in all the major countries and is expected to grow in the coming years.
What is Fintech?
The Fintech concept is derived from the terms Finance and Technology, referring to the financial and technological organizations that try to contribute new ideas and that reformulate, thanks to new information technologies, big data or mobile applications, the way of understanding and providing financial services.
The increase in financial literacy and new technologies is encouraging the emergence of new financing alternatives. At this point where fintechs appear, intervening in sectors such as mobile banking, crowdfunding, cryptocurrencies, alternative currencies, trading or risk management.
Digital banking is one of the areas where fintechs have the greatest influence. The increase in the internet penetration and the use of mobile devices are hidden behind this new scenario, largely due to the closure of many different physical branches in recent years, one of the main causes of the crisis that also affected banks.
At the moment, significant number of people are digital banking users. One of the reasons for this is that they value the immediacy and convenience of online banking much more.
SMEs and the self-employed also turn to fintech for alternative financing solutions to traditional banking, as they are often more flexible.
The blockchain is one of the parts that make up the vast fintech universe. We are talking about a type of technology that will undoubtedly change the way financial institutions operate globally. This concept represents a major revolution not only in the field of economics, but also in many other areas.
The “block chain” to which we refer completely eliminates intermediaries, completely decentralizing management. Now, the control of this whole process is with the users and not so much with the banks.
In this chain, records or blocks are linked and encrypted to protect the security and privacy of the transactions themselves. It is a distributed and secure database, which can be applied to all types of transactions.
Cryptocurrency: The Bitcoin
In order to understand Bitcoin it is necessary to understand that it is based on a decentralized computer network, which involves nodes spread all over the world with copies of all transactions that have been made.
The bitcoin has overall higher value than other virtual currencies such as Ripple, Ethereum, Stellar and many others making it the king of cryptocurrency. The use of so called cryptocoins is a saving to be taken into account when avoiding third parties.
The objective should now be bringing the student closer to the changes that the financial sector is experiencing, with the eruption of disruptive technologies that come to change the way of doing and understanding the business of finance.