This week, TechNational convened a panel of industry experts, tapping into their extensive expertise to reveal profound insights and predictions within the dynamic landscape of FinTech. As the financial technology sector undergoes constant evolution, our experts share their thoughts and analysis of emerging trends, disruptive innovations, and transformative shifts that are poised to shape the future of finance.
Our Panel of Experts
- Zahra Alubudi, COO & Co-Founder at Levenue
- Gareth Jefferies, Partner at RTP Global
- Paul Rossini, Co-founder and CEO at AssetPass
- Suki Dhuphar, Head of International Business at Tamr
- Nirav Patel, CEO at Andaria
- Carrie Osman, Founder of Cruxy
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Zahra Alubudi, COO & Co-Founder at Levenue
"Funding for European technology companies will plunge by nearly half this year, and this has catalysed a shift in startup growth trajectories. With VC funding drying up, there is no longer as much pressure on founders to pursue hyper-growth strategies, with their demands for rapid expansion. Instead, most companies are now focusing on becoming more capital efficient and on their profitability. That’s not to say that startups won’t be pursuing growth in 2024; most are still aiming to grow their products and offerings to stay competitive. But they are shunning "growth at all costs", which became a common strategy between 2019 and 2021.
As a result, many are looking at more sustainable financing models to support their ongoing product development and enhancement. That’s why I anticipate we’re going to see a bigger shift towards the adoption of alternative financing models in 2024, such as revenue-based financing, where SaaS and subscription-based companies can leverage against their forecasted revenue. These alternative financing models will enable founders to continually support their organisation’s growth without having to meet the hyper-growth expectations typical of equity investors."
Gareth Jefferies, Partner at RTP Global
“The last few years have been interesting to say the least in fintech, both in consumer and in B2B. The public fintech companies with tried and tested business models have weathered the storm better than those that had prioritised growth at all costs over solid economic foundations, and there is a growing appreciation in both public and private markets for the nuances around business model quality. I believe this will continue into 2024 as some of the at-scale fintech winners — Stripe, Revolut, Klarna, Checkout, Plaid and the likes — start to prepare for and launch IPOs.
“Here in Europe, there is a huge amount of talent now fully vested and leaving some of these at-scale success stories and that is heralding a new generation of early stage companies with experienced founders at the helm. I expect the continued recent commercial success of Zopa, Monzo, Klarna and others to also play its part fanning the flames of European fintech in 2024 and beyond.”
Paul Rossini, Co-founder and CEO at AssetPass
“While the conversation around the cryptocurrency market in 2023 has been shrouded by the news of FTX, financial advisors and wealth managers cannot overlook the growing importance of digital assets in their clients’ portfolios. The price of Bitcoin has surged by over 100% since the start of 2023 and the tokenization of real-world assets has exploded exponentially; hence many high net worth individuals (HNWI) are diversifying their wealth into these asset classes. However, what they and many of their financial advisors are unaware of and have overlooked is the perfect storm approaching. Significant sums are being invested without due consideration to the digital legacy succession process and it’s a fact HNWIs are getting older.
“As a result, some beneficiaries of digital wealth face being locked out of their inheritance because secure processes were not put in place to enable the transfer of these digital assets. This is also the case for corporate digital succession. Family businesses have for years relied on traditional paper-based methods for succession, which do not work in today’s digital landscape, and a digital solution is key to the continuation and survival of these long-running businesses. These new asset classes, together with new digital IDs and wallets, will undoubtedly play a more prominent role in wealth management in 2024, so it’s essential that financial advisors take the time to understand this relatively new but critical issue and put the steps in place to ensure they and their clients don’t get caught in the storm.”
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Suki Dhuphar, Head of International Business at Tamr
“As fraudsters become more sophisticated, financial services providers need to evolve their fraud detection strategies. In 2024, the adoption of AI-powered data products will accelerate as a part of fraud detection strategies. Data products are a consumption-ready set of high-quality, clean, curated and accessible data that can be used across an organisation to solve business challenges. Importantly for financial crime, they can analyse vast amounts of data to identify subtle anomalies and unusual patterns indicative of potential fraud, that traditional rule-based master data management systems might miss.
“Data products leverage AI’s speed and scale, and when paired with human expertise to verify AI’s outputs, they provide the most trusted, accurate insights. Human feedback refines and evolves machine learning models, ensuring that AI is trained on trustworthy data. This process enables AI to offer the strongest and most accurate results possible, ultimately creating more robust and comprehensive fraud detection systems.
Embracing the synergy between AI-powered data products and human expertise delivers the most precise fraud detection tool, safeguarding financial service providers, protecting their customers, and maintaining trust in the financial ecosystem in 2024, and beyond.”
Nirav Patel, CEO at Andaria
"In 2023, a number of regulatory changes and the continued increase in use of digital payments influenced the growth of in-house banking, Buy Now Pay Later, and digital wallets. But one of the most disruptive and valuable developments is undeniably Embedded Finance. Compared to previous years, we’ve seen a huge increase in non-financial companies actually making use of embedded finance technology instead of just rumours and speculations. And thanks to that demand, there has also been an increase in the amount of players in that space.
Despite this, the innovation in the fintech space influenced Andaria’s launch of a broad embedded finance offering, which allowed us to carve a niche for ourselves in this dynamic market. With the agreement of numerous strategic partnerships in the past 12 months, we shaped our narrative and cemented our position in the wider fintech landscape.
Looking ahead, we expect to see a higher level of interest in embedded finance by fintech start-ups, but that would lead to authorities being more diligent and the establishment of tighter regulations for firms. Banks, which are traditionally seen as lenders that lack tech innovation, and therefore are poised at risk of being left out, will start entering the market - with HSBC being the latest one wanting a slice of the pie.
At this rate, 2024 could be an alarming bell for a lot of payment intermediaries who realise that embedded finance causes disintermediation leading to the elimination of third parties and thus resulting in reduced costs for the end users. Embedded finance is not limited to a single sector and can be implemented by non-financial institutions such as sports clubs and even travel companies to provide better customer experience and truly diversify their offering from competitors.
As the industry evolves, we can expect deeper integrations, global expansion, and regulatory developments to shape its trajectory. The focus across the board will be on contributing significantly to advancements that propel the entire embedded finance industry forward in the next 12 months."
Carrie Osman, Founder of Cruxy
"I think a key prediction is a substantial consolidation in the payments sector. The recent announcement by Barclays to sell its Barclaycard business highlights the challenges in achieving the necessary scale. This trend suggests that the payments landscape, particularly in the UK, is intricate and involves numerous players across different layers of the value chain. I envisage various players seeking to establish distinct and ownable areas within the payments ecosystem.
The trend of consolidation witnessed in big tech is anticipated to persist in the fintech sector. Larger players are likely to acquire smaller ones, and the shift in valuations is making such acquisitions more feasible. This trend is particularly relevant for smaller and early-stage companies seeking exits.
VC firms are predicted to undergo a strategic shift in 2024. VCs will face a critical decision between engaging with middling performers to strengthen their position or exiting lower-performing assets to secure some form of return. The evolving landscape is foreseen to lead to significant losses for certain VC portfolios.
I think we will see a notable shift towards the integration of various elements from the front-end workflow to the infrastructure layer within the capital market space. This consolidation is envisioned to span from trader interfaces in the front office to comprehensive data management and infrastructure layers.
Within the capital market, a focus on data lineage, RegTech, and open-source data layers is anticipated. Businesses are likely to consolidate services across the entire workflow, ranging from the front-end user experience to the foundational infrastructure.
At a macro business level, a transition towards an employer's market is foreseen. As part of this shift, salaries are expected to normalise, and a realignment towards the importance of in-person collaboration is anticipated."
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