This article was originally published on Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, where you will find our team’s observations on the emerging social trends, technologies and businesses that are shaping our future.
The fintech landscape has radically changed in the last few years. In 2015, the market was product-led: successful fintech startups were solving narrow problems, such as payments or lending, extremely well. Fast forward to 2020, and mapping this more mature market requires a different lens: instead of that vertical focus, we believe that today’s fintech landscape is shaped by seven horizontal trends.
1. Financial Primacy
To position themselves as a financial hub — a single place where customers can solve most of their financial “jobs to be done” — some more established fintechs have added new offerings. We’ve seen this in both the consumer market where a player like Acorns has expanded from savings into checking accounts and retirement planning, and in the business market where Gusto now offers everything from payroll to 401k. Most of these startups have followed a similar path towards financial primacy that matches their funders’ stage-investing approach: First, solve a narrow problem incredibly well to demonstrate product-market fit; then hack growth to reduce customer acquisition costs and demonstrate scalability; and finally monetize the customer base with a broader range of products to demonstrate positive unit economics. Even as they’ve rolled out new product lines, these fintechs have maintained a “jobs to be done” focus with their UX, trying to create a seamless interaction among spending, saving, and investing. …
As the as-a-Service business model keeps expanding from infrastructure to applications, financial services capabilities and products are being re-built to benefit from, and participate in, the platform economy.
This article was originally published on Fidelity Center for Applied Technology. It is the 2nd post in my Fintech Mental Models series.
On the heels of launching their credit card in August 2019, Apple recently announced Apple Cash Family, a service that allows adults to setup and control Apple Pay for their children and elderly parents.
If you happen to be shopping for a new phone at T-Mobile, you might be offered a T-Mobile checking account which features a higher savings rate for their mobile services’ customers.
And in past few months, Gusto began offering a checking account, Google enabled Maps users to pay for parking from within the app, and Microsoft announced an Excel integration with users’ bank accounts data. …
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