How the FinTech Revolution Will Change Our Lives
FinTech is coming— and it’s going to explode anytime soon.
As the FinTech world rises and we’re now at the dawn of its revolution, how should we develop innovations and growths in FinTech?
Especially with FinTech’s ability to massively change our humanity, as finance — a huge part of our lives as humans — will be disrupted, how should we approach this?
So we spoke with Tim Anderson, the co-founder of FinTech Queensland, an organization that is working to support FinTech in the Australian sunny state — to deeply discuss FinTech and learn more about his work.
And if you haven’t acquainted yourself well with the world of FinTech: now is the time to do so, and you’ll agree with us by the end of reading this.
The Future is FinTech
The future is FinTech — but what really is FinTech?
FinTech itself is one word that covers an enormously broad subject.
“The way I would define [FinTech] is anything to do with any technology that enables a different financial outcome or service”, Tim said.
FinTech is any technology that provides financial service. And though we’ve seen new technologies changing the way we interact with finance — it’s going to change our lives even much more — soon.
After a life of working in hospitality, from fine wine distributors to setting up his own restaurant from scratch — then moving on to work with Suncorp Bank for the past 12 years, Tim has found that along his life, design has always been his forte.
And now facilitating the FinTech community from helping FinTech startups to organizing hackathons around the city of Brisbane — not many knows FinTech like Tim knows FinTech.
Along with 3 of his co-founders, FinTech Queensland has landed in Fishburners, a startup hub in the heart of Brisbane CBD — where he is on a mission to create a FinTech hub for Queensland.
“We want to create that one place that everyone can come together and hang out, have collisions happen — [a place] where innovation just explodes.” said Tim when asked what his FinTech organization does.
And despite just being 18 months old, FinTech Queensland has just recently surpassed 1,100 members — and it is now a vital organization that will take an integral part in shaping FinTech in Queesnland.
The Golden Age of FinTech
We mentioned that now is the time to get on board on the FinTech train — and the reason is: we’re now taking off to the golden age of FinTech.
FinTech has matured a lot since PayPal was born in 1998 — and we’re now entering the golden age of its journey.
And the finance industry is surely going to face inevitable changes and disruptions to these new technologies changing the way humans perform financial activities.
But surprisingly, one of the factors why Tim and many other key people in FinTech thinks we’re entering the golden age — is not due to the growing competitions, but collaborations between FinTech startups and corporations instead.
“I personally think the Golden Age is coming is because banks and financial institutions generally have been on a bit of a journey when it comes to innovation. I think now that they’re just starting to understand that okay, cool — we don’t necessarily have to build this ourselves.”
Corporations in finance are — and should be catching on that they don’t necessarily need to initiate innovation themselves by building labs that turn into theaters.
“The banks, superannuation companies and the insurance companies — all these financial services companies have a very very big specific role to play.” Tim said.
“And that’s not necessarily to do the innovation. That’s potential to provide the support the infrastructure, the licenses — the access.”
And corporations are slowly realizing that they can invest, support, sponsor, incubate, accelerate startups and entrepreneurs — instead of trying to initiate innovations themselves.
And equally so, FinTech startups are also waking up to the fact that they can’t go anywhere much in the FinTech world without the help of corporations.
With all the regulations, capital costs, resources and many other barriers FinTech startups need to break in — that’s where corporates can go in and help startups.
And this is how FinTech can move forward most efficiently — through corporations and startups filling each other’s gaps.
“Because the corporates can’t do what the startups do — and startups can’t do what the corporates do,” Tim expressed.
“And collaboration is the path of least resistance — for both parties.”
The problem with partnerships
But despite all that — in reality, there are so many layers to the partnerships between corporations and startups.
Corporations and startups speak two entirely different languages and their worlds are far apart. Collaborations between both will be nowhere near easy — and Tim expressed his concern on the potential of collaborations backfiring badly.
“Ideas can get suffocated when you put them in the wrong environment. So if you were to put a great FinTech startup idea within an existing corporation — it will potentially die.”
And with these potential problems with partnerships, this is where Tim and his team are breaking in to help.
With Tim and most of the people behind FinTech Queensland having both corporate and startup backgrounds, they are set to play a vital role in the developments of FinTech in the sunny Australian state.
By being the translator between the two — FinTech Queensland is ready to help and foster the FinTech community in the state’s ecosystem.
“By having a separate, independent space where FinTech [startups] and the corporates can meet, there’s less chance of ideas potentially getting suffocated by the existing risk averse traditional culture.”
And the space FinTech Queensland is creating is surely important, as FinTech in Australia has an enormous yet still untapped amount of opportunities in its doorsteps — literally and figuratively.
FinTech in Asia Pacific
Australia — and Queensland, with its proximity, is indeed in a top spot as FinTech and tech in general is growing rapidly in the Asia Pacific region.
And Tim has surely kept this in his mind as he does his work in FinTech Queensland.
From Tim’s perspective, there’s a reason why places in Asia Pacific is experiencing growth in such an unbelievable pace — and that derives from the true driving nature of development itself that’s happening more freely in many Asia Pacific countries.
“When you look at China, and a lot of those Asian countries — they aren’t weighed down by the existing infrastructure and potentially the same sort of regulations and the same environment that we have [in Australia]. They’re able to leapfrog with their technology.”
At this rate, Tim thinks countries in Asia Pacific could indeed turn into the world’s financial powerhouses.
With their massive masses and lack of rules and regulations when it comes to developments — unlike already well-developed countries, countries in Asia Pacific’s FinTech sectors could explode at any rate.
“When you get that whole mass of people there, there’s a whole lot of money there, and there’s not the existing legacy infrastructure to hold back innovation. So innovation could just explode!”
The ingredients of innovation are bountiful in a lot of Asia Pacific regions— and with startup hubs rapidly sprouting around the region, Tim compares the innovations we’re going to witness is going to be like “throwing a match on a tinderbox”.
And when you have millions of millennials in Indonesia’s islands just getting their hands on smartphones a few years ago — to lack of legacies causing looser rules and regulations: FinTech will surely cause explosions that will be bigger than a match on a tinderbox.
Haves and Have-Nots
But behind this fast technological revolution that is happening not only in Asia Pacific but worldwide — there’s something that we all as a collective human race need to watch out for.
We need to be wary of being sucked by the sugarcoated, sweet sides of technological developments that we’re overlooking the threats we could be facing.
“When it comes to the technology innovation as we see it — the risk is the disparity between the Haves and the Have-Nots get bigger.”
Tim’s facial expression — previously full of excitement and enthusiasm explaining FinTech’s growth, quickly turned into a serious demeanor as we explored the darker sides of these innovations we’re building.
“Hopefully it’s done in a sustainable way.” he expressed.
“How do we keep some social conscience in the key financial inclusion in front of mind and create access for all?”
Innovation in FinTech will and is happening fast — and the big problem here is how we make sure we’re not leaving people behind.
Imagine a scenario where Australia is moving to a fully digital financial institution. Seemingly impossible? Think again. On a closer look, it’s a perfectly possible reality we could live in soon.
When you thought this scenario Tim himself made up would excite a guy like him, he mentioned how this scenario would leave out so much people — despite the setting happening in a first-world country.
“[In this scenario, we] need to understand that there’s lots of people in Australia who still just use cash. They don’t use their smart phones. So [is that just] going to cut those people out of the system?”
There’s indeed many dimensions when it comes to FinTech innovations — since finance, in nature, is something that involves humans and will always be based on humans.
This is why we need more Tims and organizations like FinTech Queensland in FinTech ecosystems— to ensure what’s happening in our societies won’t wreak havoc and innovations that we’ll implement heal more than harm.
“I’m all for making money. You’ve got the pay the wages, you’ve got to have a bit of fun.” he lightly commented. “But, at what cost?”
“If I’m out there and in tons and millions of dollars at the detriment of someone else, then I don’t think that’s cool.” he expressed.
Designing (Fin)Tech that is human
When asked about how should we innovate sustainably and have more gaps between Haves and Have-Nots, his simplified solution will be “making [innovations and its design] as fair as possible”.
“I think we’re going to have better solutions when you look at human centered design [that is] looking at everyone in the system.”
“If we try to make [designs] as fair as possible and we include people in that design across the whole end to end — I think we’re going to have better solutions.”
The finance industry hasn’t always had the best reputation in including everyone in its system.
And this FinTech revolution could be our chance to change humanity moving forward — by healing that gap, or harming that even further by leaving even more people behind.
“I think it’s just a sense check and keeping your finger on the pulse of — okay, if this goes off in this direction: how do we ensure that these people are on board with that and therefore aren’t left behind?
“It just comes down to people’s own moral code, socially.”
And we surely need to think about this. How do we create technology in this era and ensure that we’re not leaving even more people behind?
And how do we collectively ensure our fellow humans in our society are building innovations that are ethically and morally sustainable?
And have we, both personally and most importantly — collectively as a society, prioritized putting our moral codes in check as we enter this time full of rapid technology innovations?
Communicating more. Bridging more gaps. Working together towards establishing more collaborations in tech.
FinTech Queensland is doing their best to do what we need to do — and with finance being a huge part of our lives as humans, what they’re doing is going to be vital.
But the human race can’t depend on one organization alone.
Let’s contemplate on these things as we enter this age of massive developments and ensure we’re participating in these innovations, collectively and collaboratively, as one human race.
