Fintech is finding itself at a turning point amid rumblings the industry is ‘losing its lustre’. We’ve seen firms struggle to raise fresh funds, reports of falling valuations, fire sales, staff layoffs and recruitment freezes. Some fintechs have abruptly closed while others have bid their farewells before they’d even had the chance to say hello.
Throughout January on The Fintech Times, we’re sharing industry predictions for 2023 as well as ideas for ‘moving fintech forward’ in the next 12 months.
Today we hear 2023 predictions from OneID, Pay360, Espria and CertiK.
OneID shares three predictions
Martin Wilson, CEO of identity tech startup OneID, has picked three major trends for 2023.
Growing threat of fraud
“Fraud is rampant across the UK and has led the way as the most common crime in England and Wales in the past year,” he says. “Police forces and banks have invested in resources to tackle this issue; however, it will take a collective effort to tackle this scourge on society.
“The cost-of-living crisis and political uncertainty have presented massive opportunities for criminals in recent months. In 2023, this will trend will continue unless the government, police and social media firms collaborate and agree on a common, technology-led approach to preventing fraud.”
Drop in fintech funding
“Fintech has experienced a very public downturn this year with a drop in funding and valuations falling through the floor. While the macroeconomic environment has been tough on fintechs, it can also create opportunities.
“Businesses across the globe are looking to protect their bottom lines by increasing efficiencies and saving money. Fintechs can help plug this gap with their modern, automated technology. In 2023, we could see widespread adoption of fintech offerings which solve real world problems such as fraud.
“In the UK, we now have a fintech supporter in Number 10, so we would like to think he will tap into the UK’s world-leading fintech sector. This would not only give the fintech sector a massive boost, it would also help level up government services.”
Importance of Online Safety Bill
“In 2019, the Tories committed to making the UK the safest place in the world to be online, protecting children from online abuse and harm and protecting the most vulnerable from accessing harmful content.
“The UK was leading the charge globally when it came to the Online Safety Bill, but unfortunately in 2022 momentum stalled. Abuse, identity theft and fraud are now rampant across the UK, and this will be the case in 2023 unless the government acts now. I’d like to see Sunak pick up the mantle in 2023 and drive the Online Safety Bill forward to protect people online.”
Three predictions from Pay360
Alex Common, chief product officer at payments solutions company Pay360, shares his 2023 forecast.
Why businesses are flocking to subscription-based models during economic uncertainty
“As businesses continue to grapple with the uncertainty of the current economic climate, the rate at which they are monetising their offerings through subscription-based models continues to gather momentum – and it’s little surprise.
“Over the last 12 months we have seen significant devaluation of companies across multiple sectors. Big tech companies like Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft, haven’t been immune, with Q3 earnings reporting a combined loss of over $350billion in market cap value. In fact, according to the British Chamber of Commerce, 39 per cent of businesses across the UK believe their profitability will reduce over the next 12 months. During a period of uncertainty, businesses need to look at new ways to maximise revenue.
“Monetising subscription-based services have seen significant momentum in the market. Take Mercedes Benz, for example. It recently announced that electric car users can now pay an annual subscription fee of £991 to enable their vehicle to reach 0-60 one second faster.
“With clear benefits like reliable recurring revenue, increased customer loyalty, and the ability to manage your financial forecast, heading into 2023, we will see a steady shift of businesses looking to further monetise their offerings through subscription-based models.”
How integrated payments are charging the way for best-in-class customer experiences
“In today’s digital economy, consumer behaviour has taken a significant shift towards the need for seamless shopping experiences across all channels. This level of expectation has subsequently translated to their expectation of service when it comes to payment choices too.
“The ability to offer customers the full range of payment options, whether in the store or online, has become a crucial aspect of the customer buying journey. For those merchants unable to give consumers their preferred method of payment, there is a danger that they will simply turn to a competitor.
“In the battle for market share, it is vital that businesses offer best-in-class, frictionless, multi-option payment services across every channel in which they operate. With higher expectations, merchants are increasingly turning to software like integrated payment service technology which enables the merchant to meet the needs of all customers and allow their customers to pay by any means, anywhere.”
- The need for total inclusion during economic uncertainty
“Increased digitalisation, combined with current economic instability, means it is crucial that merchants and payment providers carefully consider how they reach those with limited access to digital payment methods.
“While the increase of digital payment use is inevitable, the continuation of cash for households will continue to be a significant part of their everyday spending. Therefore, businesses need to consider how they capture the spending habits of those consumers less connected to digital payment means.”
Five MSP predictions from Espria
Whether it’s outsourcing, cloud services, IoT, or hyper-converged infrastructures, 2023 promises to continue to see several trends that are disrupting the managed services sector, says Dave Adamson, CTO at managed services provider Espria.
- Continued outsourcing
“Most established businesses have concluded that internal IT teams’ cost. The growing number of disruptions in the IT industry are expensive to keep on top of and yet, on the other hand, most small businesses can’t afford to match the in-house support that larger companies have. The result – outsourcing.”
- The cloud
“Companies need a cloud strategy that enables them to prioritise their concerns and plan the results they want to realise from their cloud migration. MSPs can make a huge contribution by helping them define and enact cloud strategies with realistic, measurable goals and in a low-risk manner.”
- Enhanced security
“For those MSPs with expertise in data security this provides a demonstrable opportunity to help secure their clients’ IT infrastructure as well as provide 24×7 monitoring. Combined with an increased risk of cyberattacks, more and more enterprises will turn to MSPs to leverage their skills.”
- Platform and infrastructure-as-a-service (PaaS/IaaS)
“This includes elements like hardware, software, storage, servers and networking components, along with the virtualisation layer and ready-made services such as database platforms, to help businesses scale quickly. It is a hugely attractive model as PaaS and IaaS also enable organisations to cut costs, reduce the time spent managing in-house infrastructure and services, and improve service levels for their end users.”
“This model eliminates wait times for hardware, other components, or on-site support and the subscription-based billing model of IaaS offers many advantages to clients in terms of scalability, cost, and security, often making Enterprise-grade services available to organisations for whom they may previously have been out of reach.”
- Automation
“Finding a trusted external technology partner which can fill companies’ skills and expertise gaps is essential at a time of economic downturn. For businesses looking for that MSP partner cost alone should not dictate your decision. They need to act as your business partner, help assess your risk exposure, develop security policies, choose and deploy security solutions, ensure compliance with regulatory mandates for data protection, and develop skills with your teams.
“As we enter a period of economic uncertainty, businesses need to control and contain cost. MSPs in turn need to be adaptive and evolve as the technology has, offer clients in turn the most comprehensive offering possible, and bring real value-add.”
Three thoughts from CertiK
- Success with cross-chain bridges means success for Web3
“Cross-chain bridges will continue to attract demand from the minority of users who are willing to take the risks they pose, but widespread use of cross-chain interoperability solutions will remain an unrealized goal until provably secure bridges are deployed. The development of secure cross-chain bridges is crucial to the continued growth of Web3.”
- Scaling solutions will have an optimistic future
“Layer 2 scaling solutions will continue to grow in 2023, perhaps even overtaking the Ethereum baselayer in number of daily transactions. A continued commitment to security will ensure that L2s can meet the demand of users for scalable transactions.”
- Open source transparency will be the winning model
“While a number of centralised lending platforms blew up after the market downturn earlier this year, DeFi platforms maintained their solvency and passed a critical test with flying colours. 2023 will see open-source code continue to dominate both in terms of security and transparency.”
