Northern Ireland is home to a growing hub in financial technology (“fin-tech”).
Globally it’s the same story – fin-tech is a bubble everyone is watching.
All this innovation means we could see a major disruption in banking. There isn’t (yet) a single startup that can replace a traditional bank, but when you look at the whole ecosystem of startups in blockchain, third-party aggregation, and other innovations, banks face a threat of becoming redundant. On top of that, upcoming regulatory changes such as PSD2 will dramatically change what we can expect from our banks.
If you haven’t been introduced to the blockchain yet, it may be the one innovation that could change the world more than the invention of the worldwide web. All of the world’s financial transactions are like chips on a poker table the size of earth that everyone can see and access, and that can never go away. The blockchain could make the world a more open and fair place.
This week, we get opinions from
Dankse Bank about upcoming disruption in retail banking,
Options discusses how investment banks will try to grab a piece of the blockchain, and
Ulster University professor Mark Durkin contributes his research on the human / technological interface in banking.
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-Emily McDaid, TechWatch editor
