Working in Fintech since 2008, I’ve seen many models emerge and be reimagined. Standardization and cost efficiency have been led by technological improvements. Stages around the world from Toronto to Paris to Singapore have showcased how finance is changing and evolving through the embrace of Fintech. This has been a global phenomenon since the very start, yet its development is not linear and the spearhead varies from region to region.

Fintech adoption is growing rapidly all over the world, but it’s in the emerging countries that it’s increasing at the fastest rate. According to a report just released by Ernst & Young, the EY FinTech Adoption Index 2017, where the consultancy firm surveyed more than 22,000 people from 20 different markets, the Chinese market is the one with the highest Fintech adoption rate, with 69% of the respondents saying that they were regularly using Fintech services. 
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Private transactions have since long been conducted directly between the transacting parties – for example, the investor and a private company. This process has largely been manual and cumbersome, and a large amount of diligence has had to occur in order for the parties to trust one another enough to undertake the deal. We’re seeing part of this transaction be made much more efficient by the transition to process trust.

Borderless Finance is quickly changing the landscape for international financial flows asking more of the competitive players in this market while pushing for a reduction of the costs. Amidst this disruption, the consumer and entrepreneur continue to emerge as the beneficiaries. 

ICO’s are a new form of project financing for distributed ledger technologies or cryptocurrencies. The process involves collecting funds in the form of fiat or crypto currencies in exchange for a “coin” or “token”. In order to fully understand why this financing model exists, we must first understand the fundamentals of distributed ledgers in relation to regular internet protocols, which you can read more about here.

As the adoption of innovative technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, etc. increases, it impacts the rate at which the Fintech ecosystem evolves and affects different markets. 

Distributed Ledger Technologies (or Blockchains) have gained a tremendous amount of traction over the last couple of years or so, and they are due to serve a far larger purpose than anyone could have imagined in the early Bitcoin days. This article aims to explain how distributed ledgers are changing the modern internet as we know it, on a very fundamental level.
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Compliance is a necessary staple for any successful business venture. Critical to the success of any type of digital finance platform is a comprehensive identity verification process which usually require to meet both domestic regulatory requirements and sustainable business objectives.
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Financial inclusion is an often encountered term in financial services. In fact it may be the most referenced societal benefit that finance firms aspire to better, to the point the term itself may have experienced inflation. Yet financial inclusion has historically had a narrow view of financial inclusion on solely the underserved, today with increasing data it’s much broader, including also the misunderstood.

Having discussed the very best Fintech events and conferences for this year, and our suggestions on the 5 best newsletters for Fintech innovators, we thought it would be beneficial by presenting the 20 best Fintech blogs and publications that you may like to follow to keep up with the latest news and developments in the fast changing financial services space.
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