The adoption of fintech is growing, especially after the pandemic. This is confirmed by a report entitled “The Fintech Effect: Fintech’s Mass Adoption Moment.”
Summary
Fintech adoption knows no age
The research was conducted in the US and UK last July, involving 2,000 people in both countries. Respondents were aged 18 and over.
Their responses showed that 88% of people in the US use fintech apps. This is up from 58% last year. The use of fintech surpasses that of social networks (72%) and is close to internet use (93%).
The most tech-savvy are the new generation. Millennials use fintech 95% of the time. Adoption by boomers is also growing, from 39% to 79%.
Growth accelerated by the pandemic
Fintech adoption accelerated with the pandemic. The lockdown, a measure chosen by many states to combat Covid-19, led to the need to adopt the technology to counter the confinement of home walls.
Analysis reveals that there is no turning back from this path. Thanks to the use of fintech, users have saved time and money, gained greater awareness and improved their financial decisions.
This is why 80-90% of users intend to continue on this path.
Fintech, finance and cryptocurrencies
The perception of respondents is that fintech has made finance more accessible. Remarkably, financial apps have even surpassed the use of traditional banking in some cases.
As the report notes, fintech is more about experiencing finance with confidence than making money. Among the benefits, only 45% point to saving money. Fintech has changed the way people track their money (82%) and control it (81%). 7 out of 10 users say that the more they use fintech, the more their confidence in their finances grows.
These are the benefits highlighted by the report:
- Fintech helps underserved groups solve their biggest financial challenges
- Fintech breaks the taboo of talking about money
- Bookend generations see similar impact, but seek services in different places
Research also highlights the use of finance apps. Speaking of cryptocurrencies, 31% of millennials use apps to store crypto, compared to 23% of Generation Z, 16% of Generation X and 5% of boomers. In practice, millennials are the most familiar with crypto.
Fintech is changing behaviour
The conclusion of the report is that with the pandemic, the adoption of fintech, which should have happened in 10 years, happened in less than two. This has led to a change in habits and users are now more digitally oriented. From digital they expect ease of use, scalability, convenience.
The world is adapting to these changes and many small things that were unthinkable before are now done via apps, for example, ordering a coffee. Basically, fintech has become part of everyone’s life. The report concludes:
“This mass adoption moment signals that fintech is no longer separate from the traditional financial system. It is simply becoming the way we do finance, digitally”.