Fintech drawing in significant investments

CRYPTOCURRENCY: Bitcoin a top sector player, but not everyone has made money from the currency

Fortunes have been spent on financial technology around the world in recent years.

Fintech may have a big role to play in our lives in the future, but the journey will not all be smooth sailing.

It makes perfect sense for new technology and innovation to be used to compete with the traditional delivery of financial services.

That is why there has been investment on a massive scale.

KPMG has estimated that global fintech funding totalled more than $31 billion last year bringing the figure for the last three years to $122bn.

One of the most high-profile players in fintech is the first decentralised digital currency Bitcoin, which has frequently hit the headlines for roller-coaster moves in its price.

Many people who put their money into Bitcoin in its early years became millionaires, but those who got in late when the price soared to nearly $20,000 at the end of last year will still be nursing heavy losses.

There is also the ever-present danger of theft of digital currencies, as a quick look around the internet confirms.

For example, one of the world’s biggest Bitcoin exchanges was reported as saying just last month that more than $30 million worth of cryptocurrencies had been stolen from it.

The exchange based in South Korea said that all customer deposits and withdrawals had been suspended while it reviewed the situation.

However, it must be remembered more traditional finance-service companies are not immune to embarrassing problems either.

A recent IT meltdown at a major bank caused 1,300 customers to fraudulently lose money from their accounts.

Visa was also in the news after it suffered a system failure, which left customers across Europe unable to make some purchases.

Bitcoin has fallen significantly in value since it peaked at $20,000 in December.