At the verge of global recession, looming around every corner, FinTech can be a tool to mitigate at least some of the risks. You can definitely prepare yourself for shifting gears. What FinTech development trends are currently on top and what can you do to make your product stand out?

According to the report by KPMG, 2021 was a year with a record number of transactions across the board. Both Americas, EMEA, and the Asia-Pacific regions witnessed new heights. Add to the mix FinTech investments of $210 billion and you get the picture. On top of that, according to PwC, more than 47% of financial service companies embedded Fintech in their future strategies. And that was during the Covid 19 dawn. Now, the Fintech market is forecast to exceed $161 billion by 2026.

With 473 FinTech unicorns globally there are clearly multiple ways to succeed. What can you do to assure yours? Here are some of the top FinTech development trends for 2023.

  1. FinTech trends in 2023Wide implementation of Web 3.0 and blockchain for decentralization and security. Despite a spectacular flop of non-fungible tokens (NFT) in many areas of digital entrepreneurship (including art and video games), many consumers still want to engage with the concept of web 3.0. Implementation of blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning provides an opportunity to create a whole new level of customer experience. Combined with new services, this can be, and already is a top FinTech trend.

FinTech companies will use biometric measures to confirm and secure payments. This will enable an additional layer of security across bank accounts, ATM transactions, payment apps, credit and debit cards, etc. Companies like Hypr, Keyless.io, and Transmit already leverage biometry. They also integrate different use cases to assure the smoothness of the solution.

There’s also a matter of operational efficiency. For example, J.P.Morgan announced using blockchain to reduce the cost of payments between banking institutions around the world.

2. Artificial intelligence and machine learning improve industry across the board. AI makes business operations smarter, supports fraud detection, scans potential security threats, and more. With minimized risk management, decreased operation costs, personalizing banking experience and automated workflows, companies and customers alike can enjoy a different take on FinTech.

FinTech development trends in 2023 point to AI as one of the major factors behind the further development of the industry. For example, the Royal Bank of Canada uses the power of AI to improve user experience and deliver new applications to customers faster. RBC’s private AI cloud can analyze millions of data points, accelerating financial forecast analysis and enabling a company to build and deploy AI-powered apps more efficiently.

The number of potential usages will only increase. Especially, if it’s directly linked to growth, which is another point on the list.

3.  Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) will be a new growth engine. BaaSallows banks to open access to their payment ecosystem to companies that want to provide financial services and build their products on top of traditional banking infrastructure. Thus, non-banks can provide financial services without the need for a banking license, which is very convenient for small businesses that want to get additional profit without investing extra costs in building infrastructure.

BaaS also takes advantage of APIs but unlike open banking, it provides a third party not with ready-made data, but with the functionality of a bank on the basis of which a new product can be developed. Companies pay for access to the BaaS platform, after which the financial institution opens its APIs to that company, providing the systems and information needed to create new financial products.

There are a few key players in the area: Bankable, BBVA, ClearBank, Green Dot., MatchMove Pay Pte., and Starling Bank. Mind, that new BaaS companies spawn all the time, making this one of the top FinTech development trends of 2023.

4. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) projects are no longer the cost of doing business. C-levels often see ESG as a necessary part of making money. Like elements of local culture when traveling the world. You don’t have to like it but it’s there and you have to play along. It rapidly changes and companies see the real value of ESG initiatives. Sustainability is on everyone’s mind these days. Slogans like reduce, reuse, and recycle (3 Rs) is at the heart of design and production. The digital landscape of ESG tech is rich, deep, and growing.

Bloomberg estimates that global ESG assets will be worth over $53 trillion in 2025. That will be one-third of the assets under management. Interesting cases of how ESG combines with FinTech and thus creates value are all over the place. Suffice it to say that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) joined with Google Cloud to create the Point Carbon Zero Programme.

5. An even bigger emphasis on exploring new business alleys. Even if it means working with competitors.  At Code & Pepper, we like to push the limits on a few things – effective scaling of the technology stack being one of the key topics. The other one is keeping tabs on the most interesting developments. Our blog has a few articles on classic banking institutions working with FinTech newcomers. This is exactly the case here.

Goldman Sachs has just done that with Elinvar, giving it a stake in the digital banking space (Finextra Research, 2019). Goldman Sachs is not alone. Visa also launched an investment fund for fintech startups and it is expected to add weight to Visa’s thrust in the digital banking market (MarketWatch, 2020).

These are fairly recent and well-documented cooperations. The future is full of them. FinTechs don’t always have the money and the infrastructure to handle customers’ operations. Traditionally understood banks are not always quick and savvy enough to respond to rapidly changing market conditions. That’s where FinTechs come in. We expect increased collaborations in the years to come.

Summary

FinTech development trends for 2023 show that digitalizing what’s already digital is not a weird statement. More processing power. More analysis. More market research. More operational successes. These are goals put in front of managers. Mobile app development, and even wider, FinTech development, require a new and fresh perspective.

Success is no longer technology, not solely. It’s a matter of growth hacking. Let’s do it together.