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Fintech Innovation Continues Industry Disruption

Fintech companies bridge the gap between finance and digitization by disrupting a very traditional industry with technology. What trends are emerging? Here are some of the financial technology trends and disrupters to watch in 2020.

Fintech Trends for Business Leadership to Watch

Business Insider Intelligence picked some of the most influential change-makers with the best business strategy found in fintech startups. As a business category, fintech companies are focusing primarily on automation and innovation in the finance market. Predictions are that investment in these disrupters will reach $30 billion this year.


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According to Forbes, some of the key trends driving fintech growth include:

  • Hyper-personalization of consumer products and services, thanks to big data and artificial intelligence
  • Robotic process automation
  • Chatbots and other conversational interfaces
  • Blockchain technologies
  • Innovations in mobile payments

Fintech Trends in Action: Case Studies

The 2020 fintech innovators to watch take advantage of these trends. Some of the companies making headlines include:

  • Chime was dominant in 2019, although several other banking apps were nipping at its digital heels. Business Insider reports on their $200 million Series D funding early in the year, followed by a $500 million investment in December. The banking app offers fee-free deposits with overdraft protection, early access to direct deposit funds, no minimum balance requirements, and automatic savings. According to Business Insider, this fintech app bank surpassed five million accounts last year, and it is expected to quadruple its revenue in 2020. But the kinks are not completely eliminated; it suffered a major service outage this year that left customers unable to make transactions. Business Insider says, “We think the positives far outweigh this hiccup.”
  • Insurance disrupters Lemonade, Next Insurance, and Root Insurance all made the hot list for this year. Each has their own business line and business strategy, and each also raised significant cash from investors last year. Surprisingly, each remains non-competitive within their insuretech category, Lemonade focuses on home and renters insurance, Next is all about business liability, and Root has tackled auto. Whether this will remain true in the future remains to be seen. But we do know that each will continue to make their brand of waves in 2020.
  • Creditas and Nubank came out of Brazil with a fast start; Nubank’s users stand at 15 million, and Creditas raised $231 million last July. This has fueled the growth of other fintech companies in Latin America as these digital banks have both done exceptionally well. 

Traditional banks now emulate the disruptors.

McKinsey & Company report that traditional financial companies are working hard to develop new technology initiatives to counteract the market share stolen by these young upstart companies. This phenomenon shows no signs of reversing itself, and more innovation is expected both from startups and traditional players as they delve into new technologies like blockchain and AI. Waracle calls it “the unstoppable rise of fintech” and predicts a 2020 full of innovation as existing fintech companies continue to encroach on traditional market shares and new fintech prototypes launch to the applause of investors.