What is Fintech?
The origin of the word Fintech comes from the union of the English words finance (or financial for some) and technology. The term refers to financial services or companies in the sector that make use of technology and innovation, to create entirely new products or services in a typically very traditional industry.
Fintech companies are oriented to the financial sector and there are of several types:
- Lending
- Insurance
- Payments
- Equity Financing
- International Money Transfers
- Personal Finance
- Consumer Banking
The big difference between fintech and traditional banks is the use of modern technology and services at much cheaper prices. An example would be all those applications that allow us to make payments through our smartphones in a simple and fast.
Another example of fintech is to be able to offer its users financing instantly without having to resort to traditional banks.
The future is oriented to the use of virtual platforms and the forgetting of having to go to the bank’s offices to carry out normal procedures. Fintech companies take advantage of this opportunity to meet the needs of the future and use technology to achieve it.
An important issue that must be explained is whether the money that is managed through the fintech oriented banking solutions has a license to have coverage insurance for their users if necessary, on the contrary neobanks do not It would be protected against a FGD (Deposit Guarantee Fund).
The intention of the European Central Bank is to be able to supervise and regulate this type of fintech (It will surely be a long process).
Interesting statistics Almost 25% of people across the world are familiar with Blockchain technology. Fintech’s worth is estimated to be $4.7 trillion, according to Goldman Sachs. Around 12,000 fintech startups have opened worldwide. The biggest fintech company in the world is Ant Financial, boasting a net worth of over $60 billion and providing more than 10,000 jobs. 46% of fintech companies in the world agree that AI is among the most relevant technologies for investment. More details: https://spendmenot.com/blog/fintech-statistics
Security in Fintech
All fintech companies have user-oriented platforms. These platforms can be accessed through a web portal or through a mobile application for use from the smartphone (Android / IOs). Therefore, they manage sensitive user data which must be managed in a secure way by the service provider (The fintech).
The hidden costs of cybercrime are very interesting data to analyze and assess the risk that can be avoided by continuously analyzing exposed assets. More details: Mcaffe report
The end-user and the consumer of this type of platform can do absolutely nothing in this type of situation since, as we have commented, the management and security controls are those indicated by the company that has implemented.
So what can the end-user do to assess whether the use of a fintech is safe or not without having to rely on what they read on the company’s website?
At Quarbit we care about the safety of end-users and that is why we are dedicated to offering scores so that you can easily and quickly see if a platform has the minimum score to be able to use it. These scores are the results of many controls that we automatically and periodically perform on fintech companies, analyzing their exposed and public resources.