Mahi Sall, Advisor, Fintech-Bank Partnerships, Payments and Financial Inclusivity
January 25th, 2023
Mahi Sall is the CEO & Founder of FinXpair, a Berlin-based strategic advisory boutique firm focu[...]
Fintech Frenzy: Hype or Reality? A Closer Look at 6 Key Sectors
Fortune | Matt Harris | Aug 8, 2018
Matt Harris is a managing director at Bain Capital Ventures. He is consistently ranked as one of the top investors in fintech, having participated in the space since 2000.
I’ve been proven wrong once again.
For eight years running, I’ve predicted that fintech investment is going to plateau. Based on the start of 2018, it hasn’t yet. In fact, we saw more than $5.4 billion invested in fintech during the first quarter of the year, with no signs of slowing momentum. For perspective, fintech investment for all of 2014 was just under $4 billion, so that’s “5x” growth in four years. In 2001, per data from Venture Scanner, it was something like $300 million.
With that said, this whole “fintech” thing is kind of a charade. As I shared with attendees last month during our annual Fintech CEO Summit, co-hosted together with Nyca Partners, the CEOs in our portfolios don’t actually run “fintech businesses.” They run a payments business or a lending business, or they build investing technologies, or they sell to banks or insurance or real estate companies.
Regardless of what VCs tell limited partners, or how media cover the industry, these businesses don’t necessarily have much to do with each other (besides the obvious of moving money around).
So while the investment numbers are up in aggregate, each sub-sector has a very different story. And it’s worth diving in more deeply to understand what’s really going on.
Wealth/Investing: Race to the bank
Wealth tech companies get a steady 10% of fintech investment year after year. There’s a durable view that they show real opportunity for disruption. One of the more interesting trends right now is that all the wealth and investment companies that have achieved scale—like SoFi, Acorns, and Wealthfront (another disclosure: my team has backed Acorns)—are doing the same thing: They’re adding a checking account. You could paint with a broad brush and say they are all trying to become banks. Not necessarily licensed banks, but rather, leveraging third parties and new technologies to try to become a consumer’s primary financial partner.
See: Lifehacks for When a Robot Wants Your Job
This is really fascinating to me and raises a key question for our industry, and our society: Will consumers bail on traditional banks? Will they go to their employer with a new direct deposit authorization form and say “send my money to Betterment, to Acorns, to SoFi”? This is truly a new phenomenon. If it works, there’s a whole new era of fintech coming, where the banks go from the “Empire Strikes Back” phase that they’re in right now—and they start to worry again. It doesn’t mean wealth tech is toast if it doesn’t work, but it’s striking that all these companies had the same ideas at the same time.
Venture investment: $1.2 billion in 2017 (Source: CB Insights)
Startup energy: Steady as she goes
Insurance: Fast growth leads to full stack
Insurance startups are really at a pivot right now. Companies like Oscar or ZhongAn have scaled from nothing to billions a year in funding, and in the process, they’ve decided to be full stack. Historically, insurance startups Insureon and Zenefits were simply brokers or managing general agents, but increasingly there’s a take that startups need to be(come) carriers. I certainly understand that instinct—if you don’t control the product, someone else controls the capital. So, I get it. But return on equity for carriers tends to be around 9%. It doesn’t make sense for a VC to invest in a carrier. Not at all.
Moving forward, the insurance tech players need to figure this out. It will be the difference between insurance getting really transformed or having a bunch of brokers with fancy apps. And that second future is not going to create a lot of equity value.
Venture investment: $1.4 billion in 2017 (Source: CB Insights)
Startup energy: Awkward teenage years
Real Estate: Disruption in full effect
Real estate and crypto are the two areas where we see the most growth. In real estate, five of the venture world’s 10 most recent unicorns—Compass, OpenDoor, WeWork, Airbnb and UCommune—are real estate companies, whether you think of them that way or not. OpenDoor, for instance, invented a true “prop” brokerage, where they don’t broker a sale for 6%, but instead buy the property, find another buyer and make money on the spread. Zillow now says they’re doing the same thing, and there have been a bunch of fast followers. This incredibly stodgy industry—which hasn’t changed in a hundred years—is getting re-made.
See: Real estate crowdfunding in Canada: portal insights for 2017/18
Venture investment: $1.2 billion in 2017 (Source: PitchBook)
Startup energy: First-movers moving fast
Cryptocurrency/Blockchain: Time to get serious
What can we say about crypto? Last year at our Fintech CEO Summit, we talked about how people were going to go to jail for initial coin offerings (ICOs). No one has gone to jail yet, but it’s tricky. ICO volume is still frothy, with a peak of $4.1 billion raised in March but otherwise running at roughly $1.5 billion a month. Plus, the noise out of government is getting louder and clearer that this is not some sort of safe harbor.
Beyond ICOs, we think about the crypto space in three parts: the crypto investing ecosystem, enterprise blockchain, and distributed applications.
For the first, a key question is: Will crypto be an asset class? Provisionally, I believe the answer is “yes.” The investing ecosystem is now maturing nicely, and several pioneers like Basis and Compound (last disclosure: both are portfolio companies), are filling in key elements of market structure, assuming people want to trade crypto at scale more in the future.
Regarding enterprise blockchain, is it actually a standalone business? The market is thriving if you count press releases, but not if you look for revenue outside of proof-of-concept. We provisionally said “no” to this question in the early days, but we have great entrepreneurs working on it—and I’m sure they’ll prove us wrong.
See: ‘This Is Not a Passing Fad’: CFA Exam Adds Crypto, Blockchain Topics
Finally, distributed applications are the big prize. It’s clearly early days, but this is where the talent is heading. Will the Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon Web Services of the future simply be open source protocols powered by tokens that change the way we store our files, book our houses, book our travel, and manage our transportation? I don’t know when, but I believe we’ll get there. Someday.
Venture investment: $716 million in 2017 (Source: CB Insights)
Startup energy: Wild, wild west (and east and north and south)
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association of Canada (NCFA Canada) is a cross-Canada non-profit actively engaged with cryptocurrency, blockchain, crowdfunding, alternative finance, fintech, P2P, ICO, STO, and online investing stakeholders globally. NCFA Canada provides education, research, industry stewardship, services, and networking opportunities to thousands of members and subscribers and works closely with industry, government, academia, community and eco-system partners and affiliates to create a strong and vibrant crowdfunding and fintech industry. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: ncfacanada.org
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Read More
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Read More
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Read More
Level Up Coding | Jayden Levitt | Feb 2, 2023 You Must Understand the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. Experiment: Walter Mischel was a psychologist who led a study on delayed gratification at Standford University (Stanford Marshmallow Experiment). In this study, a child was offered a choice between a small but immediate reward or two small rewards if they waited for a while. During this time, the researcher left the room for about 15 minutes and then returned. The reward was a marshmallow or pretzel stick, depending on the child’s preference. Conclusion: In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who could wait longer and delay gratification for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes. Researchers measured these life outcomes by SAT scores, educational attainment, body mass index and other life measures. See: Ray Dalio Favors an Inflation-linked Digital Asset Over Bitcoin Ray Dalio: I want to distinguish that there’s a big difference in people’s opportunities worldwide, but if you compare two people with equal opportunities. When it comes to money, it’s delayed gratification that separates them. Once you realise that deferred gratification will improve you, you begin to count and say how many days, months, weeks, or years can ...
Read More
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CNBC | MacKenzie Sigalos and Rohan Goswami | Feb 6, 2023 Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, will suspend U.S. dollar deposits and withdrawals, the company said Monday, without providing a reason for the decision. “We are temporarily suspending USD bank transfers as of February 8th,” a Binance spokesperson told CNBC. “Affected customers are being notified directly.” The company said “0.01% of our monthly active users leverage USD bank transfers” and added that “we are working hard to restart service as soon as possible.” Impact: Binance US, a unit of the company that’s regulated by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, said in a tweet that it’s not affected by the suspension. Thus the move applies only to non-U.S. customers who transfer money to or from bank accounts in dollars. Binance’s net U.S. dollar outflow was over $172 million for the day, based on data from DefiLlama. That represents a tiny amount of money for a company that has $42.2 billion worth of crypto assets, according to Arkham. Binance said customers can still use other fiat currencies or payment methods to purchase crypto. For the small number affected, “we’ll have a new partner to announce for those users in ...
Read More
Read More
Business Insider | Brian Evans | Feb 2, 2023 Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio warned Thursday of a looming currency crisis and that an inflation-linked cryptocurrency would be safer than bitcoin. Dalio on Bitcoin: In an interview with CNBC, he asserted that the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization "has no relation to anything" and denounced opinions that bitcoin is a safe store of value. "It's a tiny thing that gets disproportionate attention," Dalio said. "It's not going to be an effective money. It's not an effective store holder of wealth. It's not an effective medium of exchange." While bitcoin has been touted as the future of currency, he said it's too unstable. And stablecoins, which have been billed as safer than bitcoin, are basically fiat currencies too, he added. Ideal coin: "If you created a coin that says 'OK this is buying power that I know I can save in and put my money in over a period of time and transact in,' then I think that would be a good coin," he said. "So I think you're going to see the development of coins that you haven't seen that probably will end up being attractive, viable coins. I don't ...
Read More
Read More
ISDA | Jan 26, 2023 The oft-repeated aphorism ‘not your keys, not your crypto’ suggests that only a party running an on-chain node and possessing the private key associated with a cryptocurrency holding can reliably be considered the owner. What defines the owner of an asset? And for a party that is not the direct owner, but holds an asset indirectly via an intermediary, what is the impact of an intermediary’s bankruptcy? These questions are generally settled in other financial markets, which have developed standards to protect indirectly-held customer assets by making them bankruptcy remote from the intermediary. The FTX collapse indicates that such norms are still evolving (or may not yet exist) in the cryptocurrency markets. When these issues are not well understood by market participants or the risks are not properly managed, unanticipated and significant loss of capital can emerge. The prospect of insolvency of a major market participant requires firms to consider how they manage counterparty credit risk, which intermediated or custodial structures are most appropriate, and whether the tools employed can be reliably enforced in a bankruptcy scenario. See: Goldman Sachs Report: Future of Digital Assets and Crypto Winter’s Discontent ISDA is producing two papers that ...
Read More
Read More
Bloomberg | Lizette Chapman | Feb 6, 2023 Figure is one of countless once-hot startups now suddenly forced to contend with an icy environment for venture capital, particularly in the world of crypto. Challenging times: Two years ago, when investors’ fintech frenzy was at its peak, Cagney raised $200 million for Figure. The company at the time was valued at $3.2 billion, gaining it entrance into a rarified club of multibillion-dollar startups. But recently, things have gotten tougher. In the last few months, several senior leaders have left Figure, including the president and chief financial officer; it scrapped an attempt to take its lending business public through a special purpose acquisition company; and executives slashed their targets on an ambitious fundraising effort. The company, which builds financial products on a blockchain, is also seeking to spin off some product lines as it navigates a dramatic industry downturn. See: Market Downturns are a Great Time to Build a Startup, or are they? The company is currently seeking to raise $100 million, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. That’s one-third the sum it initially planned. Figure is not in any serious deal talks at the moment, the people said, and the startup is likely ...
Read More
Read More
Bain & Company | Frankie Leung, Scully Cui, and Lei Zhang | Jan 19, 2023 In mainland China, the retail banking industry is shifting toward quality growth over quantity. Retail banking is on the rebound now—but in an entirely new set of market conditions. Today’s banks are combating stronger competition, tighter compliance controls, and headwinds from volatile macroeconomic conditions. Bain & Company surveyed 1,800 retail banking consumers in mainland China from August to September 2022. Mainland customers are happy with their primary financial institutions. Net Promoter Score percentages are strong and steadily increasing. In 2022, approximately 55% of retail banking customers in mainland China said they would recommend (or “promote”) their primary bank. See: FCA review finds evidence of growing competition in retail banking What Chinese customers want to take their digital banking experiences to the next level: Omnichannel: Mobile and online banking are the most frequently used channels among the retail banking consumers we surveyed. Consumers interact with their bank via mobile app about 15 times per quarter, which is five times more often than they visit a physical branch. Mobile banking also has the highest correlation to positive overall customer experience. Physical branch experience can convert customers into ...
Read More
Read More
The Byte | Noor Al-Sibai | Feb 3, 2023 The CEO behind the record-breaking ChatGPT has a bit of a strange background, the TL;DR of which being that he once admitted to being a doomsday prepper who believes that killer artificial intelligence or a lab-modified virus could bring about the end of days. Origins: Altman, who is also the president of the uber-influential Y Combinator startup incubator, is one of only OG OpenAI cofounders still standing. The company's decision to go from more of a research vehicle to a for-profit venture in 2019 was somewhat overshadowed by his fellow cofounder Elon Musk's decision to leave the firm — over some seemingly huge disagreements about its direction. General Intelligence AI: While Altman doesn't think we're that close to AIs gaining consciousness — a belief that's not quite shared by fellow OG OpenAI-er Ilya Sutskever — he did tell Forbes that creating AGI is "the thrust that drives all my actions" and, it seems, his raison d'etre for the firm. See: Billionaire investor Ray Dalio on capitalism’s crisis: The world is going to change ‘in shocking ways’ in the next five years Sam Altman: "I think capitalism is awesome. I love capitalism. Of ...
Read More
Read More
Guest Post | Feb 4, 2023 The Edtech industry has been booming for the last 2-3 years, gaining quite a prominence and helping billions of people worldwide. Education technology startups have been one of the educational industry's most influential and beneficial projects, revolutionizing education for good. Edtech projects are leading the education industry right now, with Edtech being 173% more googled in 2022 than in 2018. Teachoo Teachoo is an India-based Edtech project founded in 2014 and has been exploding lately in the market. Why is that? It is one of the best intelligent learning platforms offering many courses for English-speaking pupils worldwide. So what’s so exceptional about this project that separates it from all the others? Their content. Teachoo does not have overloaded content that overwhelms its students - instead, it's a highly organized project that ensures time-saving, holding great potential for learning efficiency. ELISON Have you ever heard of massive open online courses (MOOC)? ELISON not only empowers your career and provides legitimate certification, but it also provides 100% free courses worldwide. It has about 25 million learners globally and provides academic education, training, and classes for skill improvement and whatnot. ELISON is an excellent platform for people ...
Read More
Read More
FCA | Release | Feb 3, 2023 The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) required firms to amend or remove 8,582 promotions during 2022 - 14 times more than 2021, a report published today shows. Social media remains a major focus for the regulator’s work in combatting misleading promotions. The FCA has worked closely with several Big Tech companies to change their advertising policies to only allow financial promotions that have been approved by FCA-authorised firms, but more needs to be done by tech companies to protect consumers. The FCA has made significant improvements to the digital tools it uses to find problem firms and misleading adverts. These improvements have enabled it to work through a much larger number of cases compared with 2021. ‘Fin-fluencers’ have also been a growing concern for the regulator. Unauthorised individuals should not advise people on the merits of certain investments, as this will likely be subject to our regulations and it could lead to action being taken against them. The FCA has already acted against several social media influencers over the past year. In one case, the FCA found a director of a regulated firm using their personal profile to promote the advice of unauthorised traders ...
Read More
Read More
Guest Post | Feb 3, 2023 Technology advancements have allowed us to improve processes and cover previously impossible areas. For example, the latest technological advances in security have enabled our homes to remain safer daily, stay one step ahead and keep our home and loved ones safe. In this blog post, we will explore the latest tech in home security so you can know which of these innovations might be helpful for your home. Garage door security Improving garage door security is relatively simple and can be achieved through a few key steps: Upgrade your garage door with a smart opener for added convenience. With a smart opener, you can easily control and monitor the status of your garage door from your smartphone. This allows you to check if the door is open or closed and close it remotely when needed. Regular checks are recommended to maintain the proper functioning of the garage door. If any issues arise, a local garage doors professional can be consulted. Add remote access controls: Many smart garage door openers can add remote access controls, such as key fobs, which allow authorized individuals to open and close the garage door without a physical key. Install ...
Read More
Read More
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