With the influx of new technology coming on to the market in recent years, somewhere that has been a huge focus has been Fintech. Whether it is mobile-only banking platforms or Banking as a Service (BaaS), nobody can deny the huge growth the sector has seen and the massive potential it has for everyday consumers.
For us to get a better understanding we spoke with Andrew Anastasiou, a Banking Professional and Fintech Entrepreneur. Andrew has a firm grip on the Digital Banking arena and has multiple businesses offering services in this sector. One of his companies, WireWallet, an online banking platform that allows its users to obtain dedicated IBAN’s identical to those you would obtain when opening a traditional bank account, has seen immense growth in recent times.
Andrew explained to us that he feels the reason companies like WireWallet, and Fintech in general, have grown so fast is due to the fact that everyday consumers have realized that almost everything can be done from the comfort of their own homes and safely online. He told us that even consumers who would generally feel that traditional Banks are a more safe and reliable provider for sending and receiving payments are understanding more and more about the digital transformation and are embracing it. As well as this, Andrew told us that the Covid-19 pandemic brought it home to people that bringing at least some level of digitization to their lives is not only simple but extremely beneficial in terms of making daily life easier. Although, Andrew clearly stated that traditional Banks are still the “Gods” of the financial world and it will be at least another 10 years until Digital or “Neo” Banks are embraced as normal and are able to offer the same types of services that traditional Banks offer.
Amongst Andrew’s other companies, we wanted to find out a little bit more about LyncPay. Andrew explained to us that essentially, LyncPay is his way to bring digital banking services to countries where a vast amount of consumers do not have bank accounts to make online payments. Andrew said that the main goal is to allow consumers labelled as “unbankable” the opportunity to pay for government utilities and digital services and products online. Currently, there are over 1 billion people in the world who do not have bank accounts and live their daily lives. This project was set to launch in 2020, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is expected to launch in Q3 2021 and we are positive it will be met with positivity.
In summary, it seems that although Digital Banks are experiencing huge growth, it is unlikely that they will “take over” from traditional banks and even if they did, it is difficult to say if they could even offer the same services that heavily regulated Banking Institutions can currently offer.
