Robinhood’s Value Proposition:

Democratize the American financial system (through a commission-free service for transacting stock, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies).

Industry growth in FinTech has been attributed to a handful of maturing companies — but has now dramatically spread to a larger pool of firms (including startups) that have reached the level of unicorns, more than any other business sector worldwide.

As 2018 comes to a close, what industry-wide trends can we look forward to in 2019 on the FinTech front? 

Companies and consumers are still waiting for THE mainstream opening / application for blockchain — and where cryptocurrency and finance have failed,  gaming will succeed in a global breakout of adoption.

Ripple’s Value Proposition: Help financial institutions process customer’s transfers (payments) anywhere in the world reliably, cost-effectively, and instantly.

The FinTech100 is an extensive annual report created by KPMG and H2 Ventures, showcasing the industry trends and innovative global companies in FinTech that are driving the most disruption through technology.  The 2018 FinTech100 was released earlier this month and marks the fifth edition of the report (going back to 2013), which continues to discuss indicators of change, and potential strategic opportunities for growth.

There was no standard infrastructure that allowed a customer to securely authorize viewing of bank account information in real-time — until the launch of Plaid, a fintech that has become the industry’s  “super-connector” by creating a secure portal and process to exchange financial information back and forth between customer, applications, and banks.

Numerous trends and technologies are intersecting now that will take payments past a future state of a cashless and paperless transactions, to a completely open, digital world marketplace.

From online banking to healthcare and social media, personal information is widely available and easily exposed more than ever before.  The trend of  smartphone applications tracking location, financial, and biometric data to make common day-to-day activities easier and convenient, has only intensified the debate on privacy.  With higher risk has come an increasing rate of privacy breaches that have prompted blockchain projects to be developed as a solution to address this issue with security and transparency.

The biggest catalyst for the birth of today’s cryptocurrencies came from a 9-page white paper published by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym name for an anonymous person or group, in October 2008.

As an emerging technology seeking mainstream acceptance, blockchain continues to build applications and use cases towards solutions that can have an immediate impact on industries in need of innovation, efficiency, and/or disruption.  One industry that easily fits these criteria is insurance.

Fintech continues to evolve as customers now trust these digital-only companies more than ever, slowly migrating deposit balances and other assets away from banks and traditional institutions. If you're an individual interested in investing, working for, or building the next great fintech, here are four areas to examine closely:

Western Union and Moneygram are widely known names in the payments sector of finance. As technology rapidly disrupted financial services over the last 20 years, FinTech (financial technology) companies have emerged globally to provide a simple, low-cost alternative to well-established agencies.

There are multiple industries and fields around the world in need of changes due to outdated processes and structures.  Numerous startups have taken on this need for last few years, especially in the area of logistics and supply chain, showing some traction in implementing efficient blockchain solutions across the industry.

Despite the increasing levels of awareness with this new technology, industry insiders still have difficulty explaining to the general public what blockchain is and what potential it has, making it difficult to build belief for the masses.