FinTech + Digital Currency – Convergence or Collision?
Manie Eagar · 2016
The business of bitcoin, and its broader digital money applications, has now grabbed the attention of all major financial institutions, consumer technologies, and regulators all over the world. This chapter explores the tension between decentralization versus the new channels to market play of the various incumbents. The key drivers for the emerging FinTech and digital currency innovation are to provide services that are secure and free, in real time, anywhere. Digital finance will be distinguished from the old ways of banking and traditional financial legacy systems through the convergence of digital banking, mobile value exchange, and cryptocurrency applications in a variety of forms suited to different jurisdictions, market evolutions, and the differentiated needs of the banked versus the so-called underbanked worldwide. Cryptocurrency innovations initiated by the bitcoin protocol and its later derivations have opened up a range of applications and potential solutions for an increasingly globalized economy, inviting further exploration.