As investment booms, finance and banking are being transformed by innovations like peer-to-peer models, crowdfunding, and contact less payments. Traditionally, banks had the monopoly on this. They took deposits, and extended credit.
But recently a crop of startups have found a way to squeeze these margins and offer a better deal to savers and, often borrowers, by adapting an online model.
Loans
Peer-to-peer lending is doing by making it easier for people to borrow money — that’s the big value proposition. Banks can take weeks to approve a business loan, peer-to-peer lenders take as little as 24 hours. The platforms automate huge parts of the underwriting process and plug into a myriad of data sources.
Payments
Alongside the way people lend cash, the way we pay for things is also being overhauled. Companies are making it easier for small businesses to accept card payments through cheap terminals. Meanwhile on the consumer side, services like Apple Pay and bitcoin are offering people new ways to pay for the good they buy.
In Mauritius we have the juice application that is making payment easier and anywhere.
Investment
Investment is another area of finance that has already undergone huge changes thanks to technology.In the US, platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are dominated by idea or cause based crowdfunding campaigns. The “crowd” buy in just like traditional investors would when buying shares, rather than fund a specific project. The big difference between buying shares on the open market is there’s no way to trade once you own them.
Another big development in investment is the introduction of social and gaming elements. For example, Israeli platform eToro lets investors “follow” other traders to see what they’re buying and selling. There’s even a feature that lets investors automatically copy the trades of people they follow.
Latest innovation in the banking arena
An upcoming app developed by Mondo which gives a look inside its “smart” app where customers can control their current account from. With the app where you can see all your transactions, how much you’ve spent that day, and how much you’ve got left in your account, which is linked to the app. The app also gives you a graph, pictured at the top of the screen that lets you see what your spending is doing to your bank balance over the month.
Also for every transaction, Mondo automatically pulls data on things like location, type of shop, pictures and logos. It also automatically gives relevant tags — in this case #food. When you spend money the app will also notify you so you can keep track of your spending and make sure it was actually you that spent the money.
The app uses all the data it collects to give you clever visualisations of what you spent where. It uses geolocation on the phone to track this. Moreover, the app also uses data to spot anomalies such as if a bill is way higher than it should be that month.
Source: uk.businessinsider.com
Image: forbes.com
