Preface

Banking. That old, established, venerated industry is under siege. Digital technologies, changing demographics, and demanding consumers are all colliding. Financial technology, or fintech, startups are coming on stream and no one is able to predict how the competition will reshape legacy bank infrastructure and customary thinking. There is an atmosphere of instability combined with excitement.

“Data, Money, and Regulation: The Innovation Dilemma,” our first O’Reilly financial report, discusses how heavily regulated, technologically challenged financial services and banking are at odds with innovation. The need to adapt and become agile could not be more apparent.

“Data Science, Banking, and Fintech: Fitting It All Together,” our second report, examines the disruptive impact of fintech and reviews key participants, products, and technologies. With their massive infrastructure investments and decades-old client relationships, banks have a distinct advantage. How might they fight back against the new crop of fintech companies chipping away at their dominant market position? A strategy and survival plan for continuing relevance are in order.

This report, “Fintech, Open Source, and Emerging Economies: Digital Banking for Everyone,” is the third in this series. Here, we examine how fintech is connecting previously isolated financial systems and populations, allowing them to share in transformative economic benefits. In the developing world, fintech and mobile technologies enable needed financial inclusion. The new, digitally connected world is one in which everyone should have (and can have) access to data and to the financial marketplace. The entire economic pyramid can benefit, not just those at the top. Other market forces are working together, zeroing in on the unbanked to demonstrate how philanthropy and profitability do not have irreconcilable differences.

Buckle your seatbelts: banks are evolving into tech companies with options. A digitally enabled customer experience is front and center.