The fin­tech sec­tor hasn’t rea­ched that late 90’s stage whe­re big win­ners have alre­a­dy shaken out. Ban­king hasn’t gone through that first stage of digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on – we’re still wai­ting for the win­ners of digi­tal dis­rup­ti­on in ban­king to show them­sel­ves. We’re still in the ear­ly 90’s.

All of this leads to the con­clu­si­on that there’s still a gre­at deal of room for fin­tech com­pa­nies to grow. That goes for both kinds of fin­tech com­pa­nies: the ones that are loo­king to part­ner with banks, and the ones that are loo­king to over­ta­ke them. As banks strugg­le to keep up with the pace of digi­tal inno­va­ti­on, it will allow the fin­tech com­pa­nies that seek to be alter­na­ti­ve banks to take busi­ness from them. The banks will respond by buy­ing more tech­no­lo­gy and ser­vices from the fin­tech com­pa­nies that want to part­ner with them.

Wenn die Wall Street etwas liebt, kann die Logik noch so zwin­gend sein – eine Ele­fant ist das auf kei­nen Fall. … Die Tech­no­lo­gie mag ja groß­ar­tig sein und die Spiel­re­geln ändern; mag sein, dass ihre Erfin­der und Her­stel­ler gro­ße Pro­fi­te erzie­len, aber die ech­te Magie fin­det oft nicht bei den Invest­ments in die unmit­tel­ba­ren Play­er statt. Sie wer­den zu sehr geliebt und sind zu bekannt. Zu sehr in Mode. Und garan­tiert zu teu­er. (in: Kas­se statt Masse).

Dies­mal ist alles anders.

The fact is that no tech­no­lo­gy – not even the inter­net – has its own tra­jec­to­ry. Like a ham­mer or an auto­mo­bi­le, the Net is a tool that can be wise­ly or foo­lish deploy­ed. It will not dri­ve its­elf, or dri­ve your stock up, any more than a ham­mer by its­elf will build your dream house. This is pret­ty ele­men­ta­ry stuff, but it’s often for­got­ten, espe­ci­al­ly by pun­dits who count the for­tu­nes of Sili­con Val­ley and con­clude: “Well, if I had that tech­no­lo­gy, I’d be suc­cessful too”. 

Con­so­ling, per­haps, bad dead wrong. The fact is, that the world of E‑Business is a wide open field, whe­re access to the tech­no­lo­gy is only step one. The key to suc­cess in this space, as in busi­ness gene­ral, is to exceed your customer’s expec­ta­ti­ons – and then do it again. That’s a who­le lot more chal­len­ging than plug­ging in to a ser­ver. The chall­enge is long term too.