For the last decade, fintech startups have focused on disrupting the financial system. Digital wallets replaced cash, neobanks challenged established players, BNPL changed consumer behavior, and mobile payments and online trading democratized finance.
But building “the next big payments app” or “the next big neobank” is not as easy as it used to be.
The low-hanging fruit has been taken, and the most obvious opportunities are already dominated by well-established, well-funded companies with millions of users.
Smart fintech founders are looking elsewhere.
They are looking at building the financial infrastructure of the future.
Here are the places that make the most sense for founders to focus their efforts.
AI Is Becoming Every CFO’s Best Employee
Artificial intelligence is poised to disrupt the fintech industry more than any other technology.
Businesses want AI to help them make sense of their data.
Modern fintech startups are developing solutions that help companies analyze, predict, and optimize their cash flow, detect and prevent fraud, automate accounting, reconcile invoices, forecast revenues, and make financial decisions.
A company’s CFO can rely on an AI financial copilot to tell them when they will run out of cash or which customers to expect payments from.
This is all happening right now, and the fintech startups that develop and sell these tools are solving expensive, time-consuming problems for their clients.
Finance will soon be more than just digital — it will be intelligent.
Stablecoins Are Quietly Revolutionizing International Payments
Cryptocurrency is getting a lot of press, but stablecoins are doing something remarkable — they are enabling a seismic shift in international finance.
The way money is transferred around the globe is due for a complete transformation.
Businesses are losing money to slow and outdated payment systems, while individuals get nickel-and-dimed for every international transaction.
Stablecoins promise faster payments with fewer fees.
The most interesting fintech startups are building payroll systems, payment gateways, and treasury solutions on top of stablecoins.
They are making international commerce simple and affordable, while all but hiding the technical complexity from end-users.
The future of banking is not in apps — it is in the apps.
Consumers want banking services to be embedded within the services they already use.
When a business buys software, it wants to finance that purchase — ideally with interest-free payments.
When someone books a trip, they want travel insurance — again, with easy monthly payments.
When a marketplace sells a product, it wants instant payouts to suppliers.
Commerce and finance are being intertwined, and businesses are looking for embedded financial services to delight their customers.
This creates enormous opportunities for fintech startups to build the APIs, infrastructure, and tools that power this ecosystem.
Big companies have finance departments.
Small companies have one person who is stretched thin trying to manage expenses, payroll, invoicing, cash flow, taxes, and more.
Many small business owners and independent professionals rely on spreadsheets to do their accounting.
This presents an enormous opportunity for fintech startups that want to build software to help small businesses manage their finances.
These startups do not have to compete with big established players — they only have to solve their clients’ problems and help them save time.
Time is money, but for many small businesses, time is more valuable than either of those.
As digital payments become ubiquitous, so do payment frauds.
Traditional fraud prevention solutions rely on static, easily bypassed rules.
Modern fintech startups are adopting a different approach — they are using machine learning to detect suspicious patterns in users’ behavior.
These patterns can be as simple as the way a user types or moves their mouse, what device they are using, where they are logging in from, or whether their behavior changed since their last transaction.
Fraud detection is becoming more accurate and nuanced by focusing on users’ behavior.
Trust is one of the most valuable assets in fintech.
Financial data used to be walled data — now, everyone wants access to it.
With the rise of open banking, fintech companies can offer services that analyze, manage, and predict their users’ spending patterns, provide credit, automate budgeting, detect fraudulent transactions, and much more.
The fintech startups that dominate this space will be the ones that make the most out of this democratization of financial data.
The more friction they eliminate for the end-users, the more successful they will be.
Some of the most successful fintech companies of the future will not have end-users.
They will provide infrastructure and tools for other fintech startups and developers to build upon.
The companies that build and maintain the financial infrastructure will be the ones that power thousands of other apps, websites, and services.
They will operate behind the scenes, doing the boring but necessary work.
Most end-users will never know their names, but all financial transactions will rely on them.
Founders should consider building a fintech infrastructure layer, whether it is APIs, payment processors, identity checks, compliance tools, risk management solutions, or developer platforms.
Sustainability is no longer an afterthought — it is a requirement.
Consumers want to make responsible purchases, and businesses need to reduce their carbon footprint.
Meanwhile, governments are pushing for stricter environmental regulations.
Fintech startups are solving these challenges by helping organizations measure and report their emissions, while also facilitating carbon financing and investing in green initiatives.
Climate finance is becoming a mainstream concern, and fintech startups have an opportunity to build the tools and infrastructure that will support this space for years to come.
Every financial transaction requires trust.
As payments become more digital, trust becomes more challenging to establish.
Fintech startups are solving this problem by building better ways to verify and authenticate users.
This can take the form of biometric authentication, reusable digital credentials, or something else entirely.
The most successful fintech companies of the future will be the ones that make it easy for people to prove who they are without compromising their privacy.
Convenience and security are no longer mutually exclusive.
Many fintech founders believe that the future lies in building the “next big thing” — a banking app with a novel feature, a neobank that disrupts the industry, or a crypto wallet with unique functionality.
But the most interesting opportunities are elsewhere.
The future belongs to fintech startups that provide financial infrastructure and tools for other industries.
Healthcare, education, retail, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, logistics, and many other fields will be revolutionized by embedded financial services.
These services will enable faster payments, reduce friction in financial transactions, automate complex processes, and make better financial decisions.
Finance will become intelligent, invisible, and ubiquitous.
That is the future that all fintech founders should strive to build.
The next wave of fintech disruption will not be led by apps with a billion-dollar valuation.
It will be driven by tools and technologies that make life easier for everyday people.
When money moves faster, fraud is prevented automatically, financial decisions are made smarter, and banking disappears into the background — that is when technology has done its job.
And for fintech founders, that is the future worth building.
Where Smart Fintech Founders Are Building Right Now was originally published in Stackademic on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.