Fintech guide

Unify services under one umbrella from messaging to payments, shopping, and rides, first in China and Asia, using data to predict consumer behavior and raise concerns about monopoly and privacy.

Open banking grants third-party providers access to customer data via shared APIs, ending banks’ monopoly and enabling fintech collaboration through market- and regulation-driven approaches.

Explore how open banking uses APIs to share customer financial data with third-party providers, under user consent, via payment initiation and account information services and public, partner, and internal APIs.

Open banking standardizes sharing of banking data with trusted third parties via secure apis, enabling faster, cheaper access to financial products while preserving customer control and consent.

Explore how open banking in India uses account aggregators to enable secure, consent-based data sharing across banks, NBFCs, and third party service providers, enabling faster lending and wealth management.

Explore how an account aggregator differs from traditional KYC and credit bureaus by securely sharing rich financial data, including transaction history, bank statements, tax and pension data, with consumer consent.

Explore buy now, pay later as a global payment phenomenon driving growth, with BNPL models like split-second and zero-percent financing, plus merchant checkout and card networks as distribution channels.

See how bnpl providers empower consumers with zero-percent installment options for medium and big-ticket purchases, while boosting merchant conversions, higher average order value, and retention through instant credit approval.

Explore the integrated shopping app buy now, pay later model as a holistic ecosystem that boosts conversions and engagement through interest-free installments, exemplified by Afterpay and Klarna.

Explore the no-cost EMI BNPL model using credit cards, funded by merchant subsidies and card issuer partnerships like American Express and Citi, with examples such as Citi Flexi Pay.

This is the third bnpl model, offering eight to nine month installments on high-ticket items with 0% apr initially, cannibalizing credit card volumes and raising cart abandonment.

Explore bnpl business models with no credit checks, rapid approvals, and flexible payments across in-store and digital channels, focused on high-value purchases like electronics and home improvement.

BNPL enables deferred payment for small businesses, with installment and credit, while lenders centralize expense management, assess risk and repayment ability, and aim to lower costs and boost lending volumes.

Discover how buy now pay later delivers a digital-native checkout that boosts conversion and expands credit to first-time borrowers, including women and students, through onboarding and checkout.

Understand buy now, pay later (BNPL) as a flexible financing option that splits purchases into installments on e-commerce sites, with terms, limits, and potential late fees to watch.

Explore central bank digital currency (CBDC) as a digital banknote backed by national banks, enabling retail and interbank payments while aiming for safe, fast, inclusive, and stable money.

Payment gateways are secure software acting as a third party, transferring money from a customer’s bank to a merchant during online transactions and encrypting sensitive data.

A payment aggregator bundles multiple payment gateways to help merchants accept bank transfers without a merchant account, while gateways act as intermediaries with single options requiring authorization and PCI DSS.

Compare payment gateways and aggregators, detailing how gateways process online and offline transactions via cards, net banking, wallets, and upi, while aggregators unify these options.

Explore near field communication (NFC) for short-range wireless data transfer between active and passive devices, such as smartphones and card readers, using radio waves and RFID-inspired induction.

Explore near field communication (NFC) and how smartphones interact with passive tags at close range to enable fast payments, data exchange, and smart posters.

Explore how NFC enables short-range wireless data exchange, supports contactless payments, reading offers, storing tickets, and secure access, while highlighting its standards, interoperability, and security.

Tokenization converts meaningful data into a random token with no inherent value, enabling secure substitution for sensitive data in credit card payments, often with encryption.

Tokenization replaces sensitive card data with a unique token, enabling secure transactions without exposing actual details. It requires explicit customer consent and involves card networks and a token issuer.

Fintech guide explains how fintech lenders provide online loans by assessing creditworthiness and automating underwriting, and outlines crowdfunding types, including donation-based, reward-based, crowd investing, and crowd lending.

Fintech guide explains crowdfunding as raising small contributions from many people to fund ventures, detailing reward-based, equity-based, donation-based, and peer-to-peer lending, plus benefits like marketing reach and product validation.

Explore asset management for high net worth clients, including wealth and retirement planning. Discover robo-advisors, social trading, and technology based budgeting shaping modern fintech.

Explore how cryptocurrency functions as digital money in a decentralized electronic payment system, using public ledgers and blockchain to validate transactions with cryptographic protocols through addresses and private keys.

Explain how cryptocurrencies function as digital money on a blockchain and their store of value. Learn how to trade via exchanges and wallets, with Bitcoin and Ethereum as examples.

Explore how crowdfunding and initial coin offerings form capital by issuing digital coins and tokens on blockchain for investors, with securities considerations and regulatory context.

Explore how initial coin offerings enable digital crowdfunding by selling tokens that gain value after launch, and contrast fiat currencies with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Explore robo adviser services in asset management, where automated, algorithmic platforms use artificial intelligence to provide investment advice at lower costs, expanding access and competition from tech giants.

Explore how robo advisors deliver automated, accessible wealth management with low, transparent fees, matching risk profiles to model portfolios for self-directed investors.

Social trading lets beginners copy experts via an online community, offering a cost-effective path to learn, with a minimum investment threshold, while past performance is not a guarantee.

Explore the regulatory sandbox, a regulatory innovation that incubates financial-sector innovation in a relaxed, safeguarded environment for testing with regulators, innovators, providers, and customers.

Challenger banks are mostly online with some physical branches and hold licenses, offering personal and business accounts; neo banks have no physical presence and usually no banking license.

Discover neobanks, digital branchless banks that operate online with mobile-first fintech services, licensed via bank partners, and profit from lending margins, while delivering customer-centric accounts and seamless international payments.

Discover how neobanks deliver hassle-free, quick online banking with a fully digital model and no physical branches, offering lower costs and advanced online support.

Discover banking as a service, an end-to-end API-driven model linking fintechs with traditional banks to enable open banking services.

Banking as a service lets non-banks offer digital banking features via APIs from licensed banks, while platform banking has banks integrate fintech services to keep customers in their ecosystem.

Explore gametech, where gamification drives fintech adoption through in-app purchases, avatars, and virtual coins. Learn how ads, DApps, and engagement-based revenue reshape gaming finance worldwide.

Insurtech blends insurance with technology to enhance customer experience and policy competition across markets. It enables online research, policy comparison, and purchase while improving underwriting, claims, and asset management.

Explore how insurtech blends insurance and technology, using AI, machine learning, blockchain, and IoT to automate policy administration, underwriting, and pricing with data streams for ultra-customized, more efficient coverage.

Regtech, a subset of fintech, uses digital data and networks to automate regulatory compliance. It covers identity management, KYC/AML, risk management, regulatory reporting, and transaction monitoring.

Regtech-2 explores how fintech uses cloud computing, big data analytics, and automated risk and compliance monitoring to streamline regulatory reporting while safeguarding customer interests.

Examine wealth tech as the digitization of assets and savings through marketplace platforms, online advisers, ai-driven investment tools, trading platforms, algorithmic trading, micro investing, and big data analytics in fintech.

Proptech merges property and technology to optimize real estate research, buying, selling, and managing. It addresses pain points like affordability, manual leasing, and lack of flexibility, revitalizing the market.

Explore supervisory technology, or suptech, used by agencies to support supervision through data collection and analytics, with automated reporting, real-time monitoring, and risk-based supervision across micro and macroprudential areas.

Embed fintech services into non-financial platforms via APIs to offer seamless payments, wallets, and loans, boosting customer value and platform monetization.

Explore embedded payments, the money movement capabilities within banks exposed to external apps, enabling one-click, seamless transactions for users and faster, more connected business payments.

Embedded lending integrates credit into a merchant's app, enabling seamless loans with KYC, underwriting, and partner banks. This boosts sales, loyalty, conversions, and data-driven insights within a single platform.

Discover how embedded investments enable robo advisory, micro-investing, and retail brokerage within super apps, delivering frictionless client journeys and new revenue through strategic partnerships and modular platforms.

Explore how embedded insurance bundles coverage with purchases, enabling convenient, tailored protection. Leverage customer data to manage risk, improve claims, and foster ethical, trust-driven, cost-saving practices.

3D secure adds a layer of strong customer authentication to online transactions, reducing fraud and chargebacks. However, 3DS 1.0 introduces friction, password management issues, abandonment risk, and browser compatibility challenges.

3D Secure 2.0 strengthens security with multi-factor and risk-based authentication for frictionless, device-agnostic purchases. It introduces 3-D Server for in-app authentication and richer data exchanges, reducing cart abandonment.

Explore strong customer authentication under the revised PSD2, requiring two factors from different categories (knowledge, possession, inherence) and dynamic linking with authorization codes, including 3-D Secure 2.0.

Explore exemptions to strong customer authentication, including low value transactions and subscriptions, and how real-time fraud risk analysis impacts authorization and user experience.

Apply risk based authentication to adapt security in real time with a dynamic risk score, differentiating user dependent and transaction dependent flows using location, IP, device, and behavior.

Verify and authorize transactions using biometric authentication, which uses unique physical and biological features, including fingerprint, facial, voice, and iris recognition, to offer heightened security and reduce fraud.

Explore branchless banking, enabling anywhere anytime access with digital products, mass biller customization, and zero fees, while evolving from 1989 UK telephone banking to online services and automated onboarding.

Enable omnichannel banking with real-time data synchronization across digital and offline channels, letting customers onboard on one channel and finish on another.

Explore g2p payments, government to person social protection transfers, and how digitization—via biometric identification, debit card grant disbursement systems, and mobile money—transforms beneficiary selection, payment management, and distribution.

Explore cross-border payments using a PSP and secure global payment gateway to enable local currency acceptance and region-specific methods like debit/credit cards, APMs, e-wallets, and prepaid cards.

Explore cross-border payments through credit cards, bank transfers, and e-wallets, revealing currency conversion, fees, and the need for secure, convenient payment options.

Finfluencers on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram Reels target Gen X and youth with quick money tips. But they risk misinformation, scams, and unregulated advice, raising questions about banks' partnerships.

Explore fintech acronyms used in digital banking, such as APM (automated teller machine), B C (business correspondent), B C P (business continuity plan), CAGR, and digital currency.

Explore key fintech terms and acronyms in Acronyms-2, including MasterCard and payment gateway, forward rate agreement, digital currency, settlement system, and online dispute resolution.

Examine fintech concepts such as settlement acceptance, assured payment systems, automated clearing houses, atms, clearing and settlement institutions, cards and contactless payments, cryptography, and electronic money.

Explore fast payments with real-time or near real-time transmission and final funds, and explain how financial service providers and mobile wallets enable open banking and tokenization with RTP.