Fintech opening doors for small business

Published on
26 Jun 2015
Status
Final Author
Author
Luke Hally
Summary

Who’d have thought that the combination of finance and technology could result in something sexy? It may have seemed unlikely, but Fintech has emerged as one of the hottest sectors on the planet. No doubt due to its heart being centred in London, startup and finance capital of Europe.

The traditional financial players get a lot of press time in Fintech, we see established institutions funding hackathons and supporting accelerators. We read stories about improvements in systems that are leveraging tech for efficiency gains. But are these revolutionary? I see entrenched market players snapping up the competition (hackathon winners) and incremental improvements through efficiency gains. Isn’t a revolution supposed to be replacing existing systems with better ones?

At the other end of the Fintech spectrum, individuals and business are matching or bettering the status quo without the entrenched incumbent locking them into rigid systems. A good example is the p2p market. It allows people to sidestep the current system. It’s a decentralisation of wealth and control, giving people better value and more choice.

SME’s are the engines of many economies, globally responsible for 80% of economic activity. Baring a few exceptions they have been sadly neglected in the Fintech revolution. Many of the offerings to small business are merely rebranded consumer tools, cloudified desktop applications or watered down enterprise tools.

Small business deserve better, tools especially developed for the diverse business types and processes that small business encompass. By providing them with low friction, flexible tools, we can help them to focus on their core business, improve productivity, profits. These benefits will then flow onto consumers, through a smoother, less stressful transaction better customer experience will emerge. These benefits contribute to a stronger economy and happier populace. Now that’s a revolution.

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