Tale of Immortal Money from Bartering to Crypto

        “As a king who has achieved merit & evolves time and again since human history but faces the greatest battle ever.”

Money in some form or another has been a part of human history for at least the past 5,000 years. Before that time, historians agree that a system of bartering was used. Around 700 B.C., the Chinese moved from coins to paper money at that time Marco Polo travelled through Asia along the Silk Road. One of the greatest achievements of the introduction of money was increasing the speed at which goods and services were exchanged.

 "Despite many advances, money still has a very real and permanent effect on how we do business today."

Socioeconomic conditions drive payment adoption and innovation centered around financial inclusion, customer habits, or historical industry development. These vary significantly by country but understanding them and accounting for them is critical for being able to understand customers and potential market opportunities.

Top Trends Impacting Payment Innovation

•   A boom in embedded finance is driving the pace of payment innovation 

Embedded finance has taken the financial world by storm, and its growth is likely to continue. Buy-now-Pay-later, which is well on its way to becoming mainstream in 2023 & other possible lending opportunities with low fee and real time solutions.

• Crypto infuses all financial services

 “It is a mobile first company” was a common but now obsolete statement. Similarly, we will soon stop asking “Crypto first company” because most companies – starting with the broader financial services industry – will have a crypto component.

As crypto takes up more and more mindshare of consumers, financial apps will require seamless way for currency conversion and medium for transactions anytime anywhere & globally.

• Responsible & Sustainable money movement is the choice of future generation

Unrestricted and real-time responsible payments will be the choice of future generations.   A new breed of fintech companies is leading the way with new products that enable sustainable banking & payments helping consumers make conscious purchasing decisions to initiatives that plant trees and remove carbon footprint, companies are stepping up to tackle the climate problem.

Payments Designing & Defining Seamless Financial Experiences

Faster payments are just one aspect of a broader innovation needed in payments. Innovations in payments can help define most adverse customer experiences & provide an opportunity to businesses and others to use payments to eliminate the friction and roadblocks in designing new products & services universally.

“An example of this is Singapore and Thailand implementing real-time cross-border payments between the two countries.”

• Majority of small and mid-size banks and credit unions will look for launching a real-time payments solution.

• Digital will play a role in solving low fee exchange of currency & faster cross broader payments.

• P2P will continue to be a major force & will expand to consumer-to-business payment options.

• Contactless cards & mobile wallets-based payments will rule the low value marketplaces.

• Subscription will emerge as preferred choice of payment mode for millennials & Gen-Z.

We saw a dramatic rise in fintech innovation and investment in the recent past and will continue to see the growth. Seasoned fintech sector will continue to play a critical role in shaping the future of financial services and delivering the seamless and verticalized experiences consumer’s demand. The rise of new platforms like cryptocurrency, Web3, one -click checkout & embedded finance at scale will require innovative and real-time payments methods.