Exactly how will technology impact fintech in 5 years?

Key to understanding the impact of APIs, AI, blockchain, edge computing and low-code is not just if they will affect the market, but exactly how they would do so. For each technology, we asked respondents of our Fintech 5X5 Report how its impact would be felt...

By far the biggest future application of AI will be predictions of consumer behaviour, followed by AI acting as a financial advisor.

Essentially, AI will see the patterns that humans cannot, making better decisions and providing better insights--whether that’s fintechs looking to serve consumers to a higher standard, or consumers looking to make their investments work harder. We were surprised that chatbots were not higher up—it is possible they are too common now to be seen as a future application.

Embedded finance is one of the big industry shifts that will take place over the next five years and APIs will be central to this change. And as IDs move away from physical documents to digital ones, APIs are key for scale and security.

The surprise with blockchain is not that ‘cryptocurrency going mainstream’ was a popular option, but smart contracts being almost as popular. Fintech clearly understands this application of blockchain just as much as crypto. Meanwhile other applications seem to have little traction.

Edge computing is seen as technology underpinning better data analysis and remote banking, but we think this is a technology that is far less understood than the others. Edge computing right now simply doesn’t get the same headlines as AI and blockchain—people understand that it can make things faster, but we think there’s little understanding beyond this surface.

The biggest impact of low-code is seen to be faster innovation, whereas the reallocation of developers, seen by low-code enthusiasts as one of the biggest advantages, was not seen as the main impact. 40%+ think it’s going to impact innovation. This is perhaps a measure of priorities—speed could be more important right now than any other impact.

Read the full research, plus insights from industry influencers, by downloading the Fintech 5X5 Report here >