How FinTech Makes the World a Better Place
Fintech has been around for decades and has created a financial technology infrastructure that most people use and take for granted everyday. In the past, each decade has had its own milestones: The 1950s introduced credit cards, the 1960s brought ATMs, the 1970s ushered in electronic stock trading and the 1980s saw the rise in banking mainframe computers for sophisticated data and record keeping.
In the 1990s, the internet and e-commerce business models flourished and online stock brokerages began to deliver services to retail investors. This replaced the old phone-driven stock brokering model.
Better Stability Thanks to Fintech
Throughout this period and more, fintech developments were also creating intelligent tools for risk management, trade processing, treasury management and data analysis at the institutional level for financial firms. It is clear that fintech is making the world a better place by helping financial institutions, regulators and governments provide stability. Financial interactions are very complex and regulated, which explains the need for better technology.
This high level of regulation surrounding financial services is the same worldwide. Financial services handle monetary assets for their community. The regulations protect retail banking customers, investors, and businesses, while collectively keeping the entire world-wide economic system in check.
This can be seen in the global crisis that is currently slowing down the world’s economy. Millions have lost their jobs in relatively economically stable countries, and most businesses are on hold that might not make it back. How can the government issue checks to help the unemployed, businesses, students, etc.,? How can they raise money in the short term? What are the risks of various economic decisions?
Fintech Hits Close to Home
If you believe that the dollar/euro/yen/your currency is worth something, then you assume the financial system works. You assume that commerce can be had and payments done. You assume governments and businesses can continue to react to any situation, and you can plan for the future. You assume that you can use a bank to change a check and that paying with cash or a credit card will work.
Today, that is all happening without direct face to face interactions because the financial system works and is highly automated. TickSmith is contributing directly to this automation by providing tools that simplify data interactions, regardless of the scale.
This does not mean that there won’t be any economic effects to Covid-19. It has changed how we interact and some economic sectors will suffer more, such as retail, tourism and public venues, for example. Yet the financial backbone is there.
In history, this was not always the case. Structural economic meltdowns, without the proper backbone, have in the past brought chaos, war and famine. Think of the great depression, the collapse of the Soviet block, or more recently the quasi civil war in Venezuela.
Fintech has had a large impact on everyone’s lives and will continue to do so. The data behind fintech continues to provide order, organization and stability, as we can certainly see during this current crisis caused by Covid-19. As the world begins to heal from the pandemic, we can be sure that fintech will also be behind the economic recovery.
