Introduction
FinTech is an incredibly broad sector, offering a range of services to consumers whether that be through digital banking, provision of digital currencies, or promoting people’s financial wellbeing and understanding. Within this week’s blog post, we look at a few aspects of FinTech services and discuss whether they are being used as a force for good in today’s society and what the future holds.
Promoting better Financial Wellbeing for all
The main purpose of FinTech is essentially to provide people with financial services and products through the use of technology. Within the banking world, mental health is a crucial factor as many can get anxious about balancing their finances when facing debt, especially with the cost of living in today’s world. Fortunately, FinTech services do their best to combat this issue, mainly through using tools that can help with financial advice tailored to the individual’s situation. This is a step forward as it can help people facing such situations by showing them there are numerous ways to resolve their financial issues.
Digital Currencies
Whilst digital currencies give people the platform to have greater financial freedom as it is generally easier to keep up with than cash, there are some pros and cons to it as well. For centralised digital currencies which are referred to as CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) despite their convenience, people still show some reluctance to use them. However, when it comes to decentralised currencies such as Bitcoin, despite its growing popularity and the fact that it is essentially safe from seizure, it is still not widely accepted everywhere and can prove to be a bit limiting.
Crowdfunding
Crowd Funding can be seen as a FinTech service that is a force for good in the sense that it creates digital communities, allowing people to collaborate freely without any financial constraints, particularly the route of donation-based crowdfunding. This way of funding can help communities by starting new projects, as well as the introduction of new activities, or programmes. Overall, crowdfunding is an essential FinTech service that not only drives greater social impact but also promotes financial inclusion worldwide.
What the Future Holds
Overall, from looking into a few aspects of FinTech services it is clear to see that they all aim to be used for the greater good to some extent. Some future trends could include further enhancing customer experiences by delivering a truly seamless service across all aspects of FinTech such as the ones mentioned. However despite the fact that some FinTech services such as digital currencies offer a more limited approach it is evident that FinTech services are constantly improving and will continue to provide even more platforms to be used as a force of good.
