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FinTech in Central and Eastern Europe is coming on strong, with fertile environments in which to grow innovations and governments that are doing their best to acquire new investments. These five trends are expected to further fuel the development of FinTech in Central and Eastern Europe over the next two years:
- Further development of payment and money transfer solutions – the second payment service directive (PSD2) approved by the European Parliament has meant that business and retail consumers can use non-bank payment providers; moreover, it also requires that banks provide third-parties with access to customers’ account information for these purposes.
- Further entrance into the business world – FinTechs first began offering products mostly to individuals; however, they are beginning to slowly enter the corporate sector. Expect this trend to grow in the coming years.
- Growth in complexity – FinTechs are evolving into mature companies that are offering more holistic solutions to modern-day problems, all while also giving consumers increased confidence and comfort.
- Blockchain – the use of blockchain is becoming more and more important to modern ways of dealing with and securing important data. An example of this is Poland’s Alior Bank, which recently launched a document repository based on blockchain technology. The Warsaw Stock Exchange is also working on a crowdfunding platform based on distributed ledger technology.
- Aggregators – the growing market entries of service aggregators like find.exchange, which compare FinTechs that offer international transfers to individuals and (soon) to legal entities, is a sign of FinTech’s direction for the coming years.
