Finance & technology have been intertwined ever since the start of modern society. The earliest days of finance hundreds of years ago were in the context of keeping records for things like government finances, payment of taxes & agricultural production. The first physical financial technology developed was money in the form of coins which later transformed into paper money. Much didn’t change till the later part of the 19th century when the seeds of the modern FinTech Era were sown.
The pioneering step in this regard was the laying of first trans-Atlantic (undersea) telegraphic cable in 1867 (also called the Victorian Internet) connecting western Europe to North America. This enabled instantaneous communication between the major financial markets of London & New York possible, which extended to other financial centers of Europe & Asia in the decades to come. This telegraph cable also has the distinction of why we call the GBPUSD forex currency pair as the “Cable” since most of the transactions earlier on were taking place between the Pound (GBP) & Dollar (USD).
With the growing needs of financial centers around the world, the past 5 years have seen more sea-cable being laid than the previous…
