Exploring Fintech Industry Trends: 11 Essential Questions for an Expert

As a company that provides development teams for Fintech companies  (among other types of teams), we’ve decided to pick the brain of one of our strongest experts in this field on a current and highly relevant topic today – Fintech industry trends. So, meet Yuriy B. a highly experienced professional with a strong background in financial analysis and accounting who is currently working on one of our client’s projects, a well-known payout orchestration platform. Here are the 11 questions we asked him about trends in the Fintech industry.

In what ways has the pandemic impacted the trends in the Fintech industry?

Of course, the pandemic has had a significant impact on the entire economy and Fintech industry trends in particular, and it’s mostly related to people moving away from offices. However, I believe that this shift has had a positive impact on the overall Fintech industry, as it presented new opportunities. People started shifting towards mobile devices more. More businesses started moving towards the cloud and the internet. This may not necessarily be related to the pandemic, although it’s certainly a factor. Therefore, my personal opinion is that this shift has had a positive impact on technology, as people have started paying more attention to it. 

Are there any specific trends in the Fintech industry that have emerged during the pandemic?

I wouldn’t say that the pandemic has brought about any specific Fintech industry trends, although it has had a positive impact on the field as a whole in terms of its future development. From my personal experience, I’ve noticed that people have started to play with financial instruments more. It’s my personal impression. It’s not necessarily about buying options or physical assets, but rather about people playing as if they were in a casino. Some think of it as some sort of advanced Fintech industry trend, but it’s just about placing bets on the growth of something, like currencies. So a lot of gamblers shifted from casino and sports bets to financial gambling.

What do you think are the biggest Fintech technology trends right now, and how are they shaping the industry?

I know what Fintech technology trends exist in terms of programming. Basically, everyone is trying to switch to microservices. How does this affect the Fintech industry and its trends? It’s hard to say. Certainly, the development of new technologies creates a demand for new specialists. We see now that the salaries of DevOps specialists have skyrocketed because there is a very high demand for support and integration of various systems that exist on the market. I think this has influenced the demand for specialists with skills to integrate. Software engineering hasn’t necessarily been sidelined but it primarily requires specialists to have new knowledge and skills in new tools related to integration and support.

What are the top trends in Fintech today when it comes to technologies? Which of them do you think will have the most impact on the future of Fintech? 

It is difficult to say how technologies will impact the future. Technologies typically follow Fintech industry trends, not the other way around. Technology is always a choice. So, as I mentioned previously, one of the top Fintech trends is microservices. I have worked with two microservice platforms – AWS and Kubernetes. I am a Java developer, so I am in a very narrow context here, and it is difficult to say which programming languages are most commonly considered top trends in Fintech. But it seems that Java combined with a standard set of technologies is quite popular. For example, 10 years ago, Spring was not popular in the US and Australia. But in recent years, the lightweight Spring has replaced EGB. 

The top trend in Fintech is certainly developing in a microservices environment. When it comes to this, many patterns have not yet been worked out. Therefore, I see major problems in software development, especially how software developers should work with microservices. At times when monolith technologies were all the rage, it was a bit easier to work. You only had one program there. Now, with microservices, it’s harder for developers to locate an error. Therefore, it seems to me that there will be some effort aimed at developing patterns, as well as some additional programs and tools to make the developer’s life in the microservices environment easier. Perhaps it will be related to debugging, error searching, or logging. 

This applies not only to Fintech industry trends but to other fields as well. The development of new approaches to working specifically with microservice technologies is certainly the future. 

What role do you see Artificial Intelligence as a trend in the Fintech industry playing in the future of Fintech? 

AI is certainly an important trend in the Fintech industry nowadays, but I err on the side of the traditional view of this technology. I do not really believe that AI will replace humans in advanced spheres of human activity. But in minor ways, it will be able to. AI will perform simple operations. Regarding Fintech industry trends, in my opinion, many people want to make money, but in the end, they will still lose. When playing financial instruments, there are certain rules by which people play. People will feed those rules to AI and give the AI access to their deposit so that the AI plays financial instruments and earns them more money. But I don’t have that much confidence in the profitability of this method. I’m more convinced that maybe at some stages it will bring some positive results, but it won’t save them from losing in the future… Well, it’s the same as playing on the stock market –  the more you play, the more chances you will lose.

How has the emergence of blockchain technology impacted Fintech industry trends in 2023 and beyond, and what is the role of blockchain in the future of Fintech? 

I haven’t worked with blockchain, but I know that cryptocurrencies are a very convenient tool for transferring money in 2023, and thus we can regard it as one of the Fintech industry trends. But I think, firstly, there’s a huge cryptocurrency overvaluation in the market. Bitcoin is very inflated and not worth that much money. Secondly, I think cryptocurrency is being promoted as a way to evade taxes, and regulators will pay very close attention to it in the future. Currently, regulators aren’t interfering because cryptocurrency is bringing profits. However, I think in the future, maybe in 10 years, we’ll face a financial shock related to the bursting of this bubble.

What are the biggest regulatory issues facing the tech industry today? How will they shape the Fintech industry trends?

As for the biggest regulatory issues and how they will shape Fintech industry trends, I can’t say for sure, but there are certain limitations on playing financial instruments, such as “casino-style” gambling. It’s prohibited in some countries. For example, if you’re playing Forex and betting on the growth of the dollar, you’re not physically buying dollars. It’s prohibited in a large number of countries, for example, in the US and Israel. In the previous question, we touched on the issue of cryptocurrency, and currently, there’s no regulation. However, in the future, the same rules that apply to regular currencies will be applied to cryptocurrency. These are all things we can expect, shaping Fintech industry trends, including regulatory issues related to tracking the movement of funds and preventing tax evasion.

Do you see Fintech startups and established financial institutions working together in the future as one example of Fintech industry trends?

A Fintech industry trend like this does exist. There certainly will be some integrations in the future. I’ve mentioned before that there are integration issues, so there will emerge systems that will make it easier to integrate different products, both big and small, and make it easier. Currently, there are a few tools like Kubernetes and AWS, but still, significant efforts are required in software development. Therefore, I think there will be efforts applied toward integration.

What do you think the future of payments looks like?

I think that we are currently observing a Fintech industry trend where everything is moving to the Internet. It means in the future everything will be easy to pay for. In addition, there will be a large integration of different systems and currencies, as well as some elements of instant conversion of one currency into another will be introduced. Therefore, we will probably have some kind of integrated system for different currencies and cryptocurrencies as well. For example, if you have a cryptocurrency card (not necessarily a physical one) on your smartphone or on your watch –  you will just go to the supermarket, choose your products, use your device to pay, and leave. When it comes to Fintech industry trends, everything will move towards globalization. There will be simplified conditions for converting different currencies.

In your opinion, what are the most exciting Fintech companies/projects that are now setting the Fintech industry trends?

As for the most exciting Fintech companies/projects on a global scale, it’s hard to say. It could be companies I have worked with, such as AMDOCS. I have an insider view, and the thoughts I shared during this interview were formed while working with this company. There are also many smaller payment system companies and their future will depend on how fast they can adapt to new challenges and technologies that have emerged in recent years. 

A significant factor of success is making software development cheaper. Development is currently expensive because the right approaches and patterns to working with microservices have not been adopted. Additionally, DevOps experts are expensive because significant efforts go into integrating systems. Software development itself is also expensive because using microservices increases development costs. In fact, the use of microservices slows down the process due to a large amount of time needed for maintenance, error finding and fixing.

So, companies that will set Fintech technology trends in the future will be the ones that develop new patterns for microservice development faster than others and offer convenient integration systems for different web services to synchronize their work.

To sum up, what do you think will be the top trend in the Fintech industry over the next decade?

The top trend in the Fintech industry will be that more advanced systems will be developed for integrating different currencies. Exchanges may go extinct soon. There will be fewer situations where people can use physical money, but it will not disappear altogether.

Over to you

What’s your perspective on the future of the Fintech industry? Are you looking to build a robust solution in this space? If so, nCube can help you build the right team to achieve your goals. Our model offers direct access to a team of dedicated developers who will work as an extension of your company. They’ll work full-time, 40 hours per week, to deliver a solution that meets your exact requirements. Let’s connect and discuss how nCube can help you succeed in the competitive world of Fintech.