Fintech as a sector began to take shape as technology was adapted to improve the speed, accuracy, efficiency, and cost of back-office processing. This movement focused initially on banks, which owned much of the process and, having fallen far behind in terms of technical innovation, were ripe for disintermediation by tech-savvy startups hungry to peel off this or that specific process and modernize it, attracting legions of users along the way. By and large, this worked; even today, many banks are beset with legacy tech stacks very resistant to deploying new systems and processes across the entire enterprise, and even when they do, it doesn’t always happen quickly or easily. Meanwhile, many Fintech startups have brought speed and cutting-edge technology to financial processes like payments of all types, settlement & clearing, investments, real estate, insurance, etc. Consumers have been the main beneficiaries through ease of use, lower cost, and greater flexibility, while banks have lost control of these slivers of a given customer’s financial life. To read the full article, click here.