January 201819 Disruptors, Big Data, and FinTech have all become a part of our vocabulary over the last year or two. A company that doesn't own any hotels, can give stiff competition (and attain much higher market valuations in the process) to one that is established in the hospitality industry and has thousands of properties worldwide. Most of the disruptors we have seen in the last few years, have been technology (or IT) enabled companies, identifying the pain points within an industry, creating a much easier platform to link the demand and supply, and offering value-added services at the same time. While we have seen major impacts from these in the transport, hospitality, and social networking, the impact on the finance industry has not yet reached such a dramatic extent. Things are however looking to change soon. The number of FinTech companies crossed the 1,000 mark in 2016 with more than US$100 bn in funding and US$870 bn in market valuation. The investment in FinTech more than doubled from 2014 to 2015. The number of companies offering new services, enabled through the use of IT ­ predictive analytics, intelligent algorithms, simplified platforms reaching an untapped customer base is increasing at a rapid pace. These companies cover a big part of the entire finance value chain, be it crypto-currencies, security, banking and payment, financing, investments, wealth management or insurance. We have seen the rise of WeChat Pay by Tencent and Alipay by Alibaba group in the recent years. These services have not only revolutionized the way users perform online transactions, but also the way banks operate in order to provide services that are used by the end customer. In the cases above, it has been in some instances more important for the banks to enable a link through the payment application in a convenient way, than to have an online platform that is convenient to use ­ as users do not go through the usual banking platform anymore! The question I guess we all have is, what is next?Use of "IT" in Finance Industry and its FutureBY NIRAV SHAH, COUNTRY CONTROLLER, ABB SINGAPORECXO InsightsNirav Shah
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