The future of Fintech for brokers in Italy

Digitization has been talked about for many years now and virtually every area of ​​business, as well as ordinary life, is now pervaded by digital technology. The world of finance is certainly not far behind. Also as a consequence of the impulse of the crisis and the change in habits due to the pandemic in progress, many Italians have entered the world of investments , while those who were already in the field have been able to take advantage of the new tools and their pre-acquired skills and experience to make wise choices.

But what's on the horizon for the Fintech world ? At the moment the most recurring lietmotiv are (again) cryptocurrencies, but also the robo-advisors have entered more into the common lexicon of those who chew the instruments of finance. To look up to the future, however, it is necessary to pay attention to those who analyze and take into consideration the macro-dynamics, which inevitably escape those who are not full-time on these topics. Many financial experts, such as those at AbileTrader.com , put an emphasis on social trading and copy trading . An absolute novelty? No, but it seems to be a trend that will gradually become more and more mainstream. Let's review its importance.

Social Trading

This form of investment mainly brings together two factors: the habit of using social platforms and their classic sharing tools; the ability to trade with a few clicks . In the absence of significant earning opportunities in the last year, many have begun, also taking advantage of the increased time available, to deepen these areas and have found these tools useful and immediate. Thanks to social trading it is in fact possible to literally copy the strategies of other traders . The broker platforms have developed interfaces that refer to the most used social networks and allow you to view the operations and even automate the copy. We therefore speak of copy trade and mirror trade , in the first case we refer in general to traders who carry out the same operation, in the second case to a systematic process of copying every single operation carried out by a specific trader.

Italian-style fintech: the words of Visco

Returning to digitalization, just a few days ago the governor of the Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco spoke about it with a speech at the end of the webinar "The digital transition in credit" , supporting the expectations of those who are eager to see our country in step – if not avant-garde – as regards, of course, Fintechs. As for what can be considered the main column of Fintech, that is payments and currency exchanges via the internet , he underlined how:

In Italy, in 2020 the share of Internet transactions out of the total card-based transactions increased by about 8 percentage points on average compared to 2019. The share of online transfers (via the Internet or via telematic connections) on the total of credit transfers also recorded a strong increase, equal to 6 percentage points.

Even in physical stores, Visco continued, the share of contactless payments has increased. Although it has certainly been encouraged by the spread of Covid-19, it is a habit that will realistically remain among Italians because fundamentally, and it is one of the keystones of Fintechs, it is comfortable .

The President of Bankitalia spoke about the ease of access to credit thanks also to crowdfunding , a positive element of financial inclusion, but he did not fail to highlight the potential risks concerning in particular the area of personal privacy :

The protection of the integrity of data and business processes is accompanied by the protection of consumers and their data, in the awareness that the consolidation of trust in innovation is a fundamental factor for the stability of the financial system.

In summary, he continues, the problem can be encouraged by the concentration of information management by a small number of players (the Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft groups in primis, by his words).

The future of Fintechs: cryptocurrencies

So, what do we expect for the Fintech world in the coming years? With the success of companies such as Coinbase, the standardization of the adoption of cryptocurrencies seems evident and inevitable. It is no coincidence that many brokers such as eToro have for some time now included in their platforms the possibility of buying, selling or converting Bitcoin, Ethereum and other coins . A trend that will inevitably continue to continue in the future with the adoption of an increasing number of cryptocurrencies. Volumes, in fact, are constantly increasing: the latest boom at the beginning of the year teaches …

The future of Fintechs: payments

From contactless to apps to pay through smartphones or QR codes, as we said previously, day-to-day money transfer using advanced technological tools is certainly the lifeblood that allows Fintechs to progress because it literally moves flows from traditional channels to new ones, thus giving cash flow to those responsible for the latter and allowing them to invest in increasingly practical and safe systems. Not only that, even the main brokers could take the field and allow (for example) to pay with cryptocurrencies.

The future of Fintechs: financial inclusion

The pandemic has prompted many people to take an interest in investments and therefore to make the first accesses to the related tools, some directly from their banks, some by creating investment profiles on new platforms. In the Western world, access to these tools is now very widespread, while in developing countries massification is still accelerating and thanks to new apps, services and basically brokers it has now become very easy to start investing : practical, but also in terms of skills. In particular, brokers have a strong incentive to break down the barriers to entry competence , simplifying and making digestible concepts that until recently were difficult for most.

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The article The future of Fintech for brokers in Italy comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-futuro-delle-fintech-per-i-broker-in-italia/ on Thu, 29 Apr 2021 17:40:11 +0000.