In October 2018, CeFPro embarked on a global research initiative to gather market data on FinTech trends, priorities and challenges – FinTech Leaders 2019. The data-gathering phase concluded in February 2019, with 900+ end-users and 60 Advisory Board members completing the research.
According to the research, the top 3 investment priorities for finance professionals are:
Anti-fraud | Payments | RegTech
In the US, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) push for open data, combined with advanced payment technologies, is leading to more collaboration between stakeholders. In Europe, the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) has increased competition and encouraged the concept of open banking.
Furthermore, many industry observers expect the worldwide volume of mobile payments to grow by 60% over the next two years. Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa in particular have seen significant adoption of mobile payments because of financial exclusion.
In many ways, China leads the rest of the world in FinTech-enabled payments adoption. Each of China’s big four state-owned banks (ICBC, BOC, CCB and ABC) has formed at least one strategic partnership with the big tech firms like Alibaba and Tencent. Blockchain solutions from firms such as Ripple and R3 are also viewed as enablers for unblocking the current outdated and closed global payments infrastructure.
Unfortunately, faster payments mean faster fraud. Fraudsters are known to exploit technology to their advantage, often adapting to new technology faster than consumers. There is clearly an arms race evolving in the FinTech market between financial services providers and the fraudsters, leading to increased investments in advanced technology.
