Fintech will continue to grow and stay in headlines, but it will be far from the full disruption. I do not see a Google or Facebook alike company emerging in Fintech in this decade. It will continue to be highly fragmented with various small-ish leaders driving the disruptions. Higher VC capital getting allocated to Fintech shall lead to some key leaders emerge by the end of this decade.
Payments shall continue the fragmentation for now, with Paypal, Apple Pay, Banks, and various other smaller localized payment initiatives gaining traction. But it remains to be seen whether mobile, a new device (like square), or what else becomes the payment mantra of the future.
Bitcoin shall face continue to face the regulatory challenges which will avoid its faster scale-up. Some hobbyists and big digital believers shall continue to push the boundaries here but mainstream adoption and regulatory acceptance shall take its own time.
Emerging countries shall offer growth for Fintech firms. Micro-finance focused startups shall grow the financial inclusion and technology adoption through mobile should be a key enabler.
Personal financial data access limitations and regulation shall be a hot theme and financial institutions will work through their users data analytics, but not share anything meaningful openly in the cloud.
Social collaboration, analytics, cloud etc. will continue to be important themes for the development of Fintech firms. But the latest tech revolutions like 3D printing, Internet of things, Smart-watches shall have limited interaction with any fintech firms in the coming year.
Entreprise fintech startups shall continue to challenge the incumbants, and financial institutions legacy technologies, open source may offer the disruptive entry into the bigger clients. For example, investment banks are likely to adopt open source technologies for their future build-outs of compliance, risk, fixed income focused investment areas. That’s the only sustainable way for the banks to manage their technology spend.