Hot Fintech Trends for 2021

Posted by michael bedwell on January 28th, 2021

The confinement has ended, but the consequences of the COVID19 crisis are still being felt and many trends that have emerged during these days of quarantine will develop in the coming months to consolidate in 2021.

The Fintech sector has remained active. But it has also felt the consequences of the health crisis with lower turnover, difficult access to new rounds of financing, and problems staying relevant in the months of hiatus due to confinement. Even so, the future looks good for all these financial companies with a high technological component, which offer innovative solutions in a traditionally rigid sector.

Possible trends that will dominate the Fintech sector in 2021:

• Blockchain: 

Blockchain technology, since its inception, has been positioned as a guarantor of transparency and a key tool to be able to sustain virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. 

Now its applications have diversified into sectors such as healthcare or cloud storage. The promising future of Blockchain technology may be more tied to other sectors than cryptocurrencies, and the current crisis is helping to reveal that.

• Changes in consumer habits: 

During the Coronavirus crisis, online consumption has exploded, practically all large stores have had problems absorbing demand. Even the American giant Amazon, which has hired 175,000 workers in the midst of a pandemic, has struggled to satisfy consumers as its sales increased in double digits. 

It is likely that many of these people who have resorted to online shopping in droves maintain at least part of the habit to consolidate eCommerce, and therefore electronic payments, definitely in all segments.

• Neobanks:

The so-called Neobanks are banking entities without physical offices. In most, these Neobanks allow all operations to be carried out through their app, and it is not even necessary to enter their website.

• Artificial intelligence:

Artificial intelligence has been impacting all sectors for years, especially healthcare, and this crisis has further boosted the trend. But Fintech companies are also adopting, and among other applications, it is used to create automated risk profiles of clients, act as a digital assistant for users of technological platforms, or develop risk models for real estate projects.

• Crowdlending:

In the context of the need to access credit, the tendency to seek alternative or complementary ways to banking by real estate developers is increasing. Since 2015, crowdlending has grown in double digits around the world, and this trend will only accelerate in the following year's thanks to the need to digitize the financing that this channel provides. 

In the coming years, Fintech companies will stop being the little brother of traditional financial institutions to occupy the central position. 

The Millennial generation has already adopted many of its solutions as natural and the younger generations are already native in all kinds of technologies. 

They will not go back to the teller windows, ATMs, or analog solutions for your financial needs. This pandemic, as in so many other aspects, seems to be serving as an accelerator for changes that were already foreshadowed on the horizon, and that may come early.