‘Fintech’, to borrow a somewhat overused tech simile, is like teenage sex; everyone talks about it, nobody knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it and so claims they’re doing it too.
The paper highlighted this week from Bonnie Buchanan and Cathy Cao of the Seattle University is hard to summarize because the space is going in all directions. In a nutshell the researchers point out the biggest markets in terms of current developments are China, the U.S. the U.K. and (yes) Sweden.
China though dominates in terms of transaction volume. As it was never really a ‘card’ economy it didn’t have a legacy non-bank payment system to get over. Moreover a patchy bank branch network combined with muscle-bound telecom infrastructure make it an especially fertile place for smarter solutions to root.
If China is your interest dive in to the paper (follow this link The Fintech Revolution in China) from page 14 which is where that market is specifically covered. If you’d like the wisdom in a tablet there’s an online show and you can watch Professor Buchanan in a 30-min video presentation via this link.
I’m indebted to the paper for one thing, an approachable definition of ‘fintech’; it’s just scary shorthand (because most who use the term want it to sound scary?) for financial services unbundling. When put that way it sounds like a lot more like teenage sex; something we all know a little about?
Happy Sunday.