Big tech is coming for banking: Experts
Financial technology startups will enter the next decade with a little more street cred than the last time around.
Nearly 60 upstarts focusing on financial services -- from Stripe Inc. to Chime Inc. to Plaid Inc. -- have garnered valuations of more than $1 billion in recent years, according to CB Insights. Personal loans -- a category popularized by fintechs like GreenSky Inc. or Affirm Inc. -- are now the fastest growing form of debt in the U.S., Experian data says. And Robinhood sparked a movement toward free stock trading that has shaken the business models of the likes of Charles Schwab Corp. and E*Trade Financial Corp.
Still, analysts and experts say there's more to come. Sweeping mergers and acquisitions have transformed some of the industry's largest incumbents in payments, who are gearing up for a bigger fight for market share with newcomers. And regulators are looking to have more say over how technology companies venture into financial services.
Here's our annual list of the most important trends, challenges and companies to watch in the New Year.
Mergers and acquisitions have historically been small and rare in the fintech space, but that changed in a big way in 2019. Fiserv Inc., Fidelity National Information Services Inc. and Global Payments Inc. did a series of deals that transformed payment processing in the U.S. More recently, PayPal Holdings Inc. made its largest acquisition ever and Charles Schwab announced it would buy TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. for about $26 billion. That frenzied pace of deal-making might continue through (at least some of) 2020. Lindsay Davis, senior intelligence analyst, CB Insights: "Wealth management will likely see more consolidation from incumbents, who are under pressure to compete for next-gen customers and an army of virally growing fintech apps who have abstracted the client relationship away from the old guard. Charles Schwab buying TD Ameritrade is just the beginning of more strategic consolidation to come."
Matt Harris, partner, Bain Capital
Ventures: "I think there is a window during the first half of the year for IPOs, but once summer hits people will be fundamentally distracted by the election. I certainly don't think it will be fast and furious."
Regulatory Scrutiny
Memorably, in 2019 Mark Zuckerberg defended Facebook Inc.'s plan to overhaul the world banking system in front of Congress. (Legislators were not amused.) Our experts think there's plenty more government scrutiny ahead for financial technology players. That's even though regulators including the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. have sought to encourage banks to work with newer technologies like alternative data in their underwriting in an attempt to bring more people into the financial services ecosystem. Companies will need to adjust their strategies accordingly.
Alyson Clarke, principal analyst, Forrester: "Regulators are going to start taking a closer look and scrutinizing artificial intelligence. The whole Apple Card and the supposed gender bias -- I think we'll see more things like this surface. Transparency in AI is critical and ethics in AI is critical and it needs regulatory oversight." Vanessa Colella, Chief Innovation Officer, Citigroup Inc.: "We want to make sure the people who are transacting are who they say they are. As we get to 40 billion devices online, you can see it's not just about KYC, or Know Your Customer, it's KYM, or Know Your Machine -- and being sure that, as these transactions are happening at the edge, that you're able to validate what the machine is, and whether the machine has the permission and the capability to make that transaction." The Rise of Digital Banks
Chime, the leading U.S. digital bank, is now valued at $5.8 billion. That makes it more valuable than some of the country's largest banks, including New York Community Bancorp, CIT Group Inc. or Synovus Financial Corp. It's part of a new class of entrants, known as "challenger banks" or "neo-banks," that's raised more than $3 billion in venture funding in the first three quarters of this year. With that has come millions of customers. Will they remain loyal? Or will traditional lenders be able to win them back?