As discussed, earlier FinTech refers to the use various types of technological innovations, such

as specific software and algorithms, in order to make the use of financial services more
accessible, and easy to utilize. Used by consumers and businesses alike, fintech has lots of uses,
from the development of crypto currencies to personalized - short term loan provisions, but chief
among them has to be the role it plays in aiding investment decisions.

In the last decade there has been a visible shift towards the use of Fintech to identify investment
opportunities, evident from the increase in the share investment dollars going into Fintech from
5% to an impressive 20%. This includes a mind boggling $100 billion that has been injected into
fintech since 2010, $6 billion of which came just in the first quarter of 2019. Moving forward,
this data trend is a clear indication of the direction in which modes of investment are heading,
and Fintech will only become more prevalent in the investment market as time progresses.

Identifying opportunities

Currently most consumers rely solely on financial intermediaries like stock brokers or
investment bankers to identify suitable investment opportunities and manage their portfolios.
Innovations in Fintech has meant a large portion of the tasks performed by financial advisors can
now be more efficiently carried out by specialized software. Although, this doesn’t mean that
have been entirely replaced. Instead, if the advisors can find a way to work with this new tech
rather than resisting it they become more efficient, cut back on the number of errors and save
time allowing them to focus solely on the investor. For example, price of individual shares and
other data such as dates may be updated automatically rather the advisors having to input them
manually in excel or macros.

Providing Support

While it’ll still be mandatory to recruit and hire skilled advisors in the financial sector, using
fintech to complement these advisors rather than replace them will enable them to deliver better
informed and more up to date advise to investors in wide range of sectors and industries.
Moreover, this automation of basic duties and access to potentially limitless financial data can
also help businesses to make to sound investment decisions as well without having to rely on
third party brokerage firms, in effect cutting out the middleman and reducing business costs.

The Future is Now

According to Ecosystm advisor Paul Gestro, “Fintech is poised to have a much greater impact in
2020 than many people realize.” In the coming years it is believed that fintech services like Robo
advising which makes it less expensive to deliver financial services, will facilitate the inclusion
of people into the investment game who may not have considered doing so in the past. Not only
is this good news for emerging economies but also other ethnic and gender groups who find it
more challenging to gain access to sound financial advice. This newfound ability to capitalize on
markets that may have been thought of as being inaccessible in the past is especially good news
for banks and other financial firms, as it will lead to a significant influx of investment funds into
the market from new investor who’ll jump on the opportunity to gain profitable returns.

Asia in particular is an enticing possibility from which to siphon these funds as in 2018 alone VC
backed fintech firms raised USD 40 billion, 20 billion of which came from Chinese investors.
So, there is little doubt that if innovations in fintech keep moving in the same direction, we will
see an unprecedented growth in both the financial and non – financial sectors in such emerging
economies.

Though it is true that due to the global corona virus pandemic public interest in fintech has taken
a bit of a hit, as fintech related investments dropped to $6.1 billion which is the worst since 2016.
However, this is to be expected as in this current climate investors will value security over
engaging in risky investments, as a resilt of which most industries around the world are suffering
from the same fallout. So, overlooking this minor road bump, once things return to normal things
are still looking bright for Fintech in the future.
 References

Lee, D.L (2020), How Fintech is Shaping the Future of Wealth Management
https://due.com/blog/how-fintech-is-shaping-the-future-of-wealth-management/

Moore, B.M. (2020) Fintech investment to surge in 2020

https://www.fintechnews.org/fintech-investment-to-surge/

High, M.H.(2020) Fintech investment drops due to COVID-19

https://www.fintechmagazine.com/fintech/fintech-investment-drops-due-covid-19