Chris Myers, the contributor of this article, starts of by saying that he is a believer that the financial technology sector is failing to live up to the hype. He is right in the sense that fintech has not totally disrupted the traditional financial sector as stated in many sources however, I think the point is that fintech is positioned in so many of the areas that financial institutions source their revenue from, that there is potential for them to be legitimately threatened. Myers’ first point is to “Ensure you have the right investors”. Ultimately, because many investors have three to five year investment horizons, some fintech companies feel pressured to do too much in a short period of time which leads to short-sighted mistakes. The problem with this, is that because the Fintech industry is growing so quickly, if a company is not quick enough then it will get left behind. The second point Myers makes is “Stay lean and don’t act like a tech startup”. Fintech companies must not act like startups and make slow changes. Again, this may give competition and the traditional financial corporations to outpace them. Finally, the third point is to “Show respect for the incumbents, but hedge your bets”. Fintech companies may find it hard to partner with traditional financial institutions due to the regulated environment, so they must spread the risk by implementing their technology in other institutions that use their technology, which still allows them to grow.
Article Link : http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrismyers/2017/02/10/3-steps-fintech-companies-need-to-take-in-order-to-survive/2/#38b0c2d37d87
Very cool article, I like how it presented FinTech in a different light than most articles do. It sounds critical of these businesses but also solution-oriented.