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Chart: Fintech is in the Eye of the Beholder

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Chart: Fintech is in the Eye of the Beholder

Fintech is in the Eye of the Beholder

Finance professionals have very different perspectives

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

The development of new technology in the financial sector is happening at a breakneck speed.

Between the emergence of the blockchain, AI, robo-advisors, regtech, payment and loan services, and many other examples of technological progress, there are many ideas to keep track of at once.

It would appear that these changes are happening so fast, in fact, that people don’t even have a uniform idea of what fintech really is.

Varying Interpretations

According to the results of LinkedIn’s survey of financial services professionals, how fintech is perceived greatly depends on a person’s role within the financial industry.

Wealth managers, for example, are very much aware of the robo-advisor arms race happening now, and how it may impact their future business especially with millennials. As a result, it’s likely no surprise that 68% of wealth managers rank robo-advisors as an important development within the fintech sector. Meanwhile, other developments like the blockchain (21%), regtech (24%) and digital lending (16%) are perceived as less important by this group.

For investment bankers and fintech professionals, the tables are turned.

Interestingly, these two groups seem to see more eye-to-eye regarding the technologies at play in the finance sector. Both fintech professionals (63%) and investment bankers (55%) saw AI-based investing as an important development, and both saw the blockchain (44% and 35%) as a key development as well.

Blockchain, Schmlockchain

Retail bankers had a very different perspective on the blockchain. They ranked both insurtech and chatbots (which we didn’t even show in our chart) as more important than the new distributed ledger technology, putting it in last place out of the options given.

This could be an oversight, considering that cryptocurrencies alone are already worth more than $80 billion, and that doesn’t even include the many other potential applications of the blockchain.

Retail bankers had other contrarian opinions as well – they were the only subgroup where the majority chose digital lending (54%) as the most important development in the industry as a whole.

Living in Alternate Realities?

While the jury is still out on what aspect of fintech will have the biggest impact on financial services overall, there is an even deeper question at hand: will fintech make a real impact on traditional financial services at all?

It’s a question that’s very divisive, with very different answers depending on your side of the spectrum:

  • 42% of fintech professionals see fintech as being a direct threat to traditional finance
  • 13% of traditional finance professionals see fintech as being a direct threat to traditional finance

Who’s right, and who’s wrong?

Surely, at least one group is going to end up disappointed with their lack of foresight.

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Visualizing Internet Usage by Global Region

In this infographic, we map out internet usage by global region based on the latest data from the World Bank.

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Map showing internet usage by region.

Visualizing Internet Usage by Global Region

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Digital technologies have become an integral part of our daily lives, transforming communications, business, health, education, and more. Yet, billions of people around the world are still offline, and digital advancement has been uneven.

Here, we map internet usage by region based on data from the World Bank’s Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023.

Digitalization Has Been Uneven

According to the World Bank, between 2018 and 2022, the world gained 1.5 billion new internet users.

In 2020 alone, the share of the global population using the internet increased by 6% (500 million people), marking the highest jump in history. India, in particular, has seen high rates of adoption. For example, in 2018, only 20% of Indians used the internet. By 2022, this percentage had grown to more than 50%.

RegionIndividuals using the internet (% of population)
East Asia & Pacific74
Europe & Central Asia87
Latin America & the Caribbean76
Middle East & North Africa77
North America92
South Asia42
Sub-Saharan Africa34

However, the progress of digitalization has been uneven both within and across countries.

In 2022, one-third of the global population remained offline, with parts of Asia and Africa still experiencing very low rates of internet usage. For instance, more than half of businesses in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Senegal reportedly lack internet connection.

According to the World Bank’s report, when fast internet becomes available, the probability of an individual being employed increases by up to 13%, and total employment per firm increases by up to 22%. Moreover, firm exports nearly quadruple with the availability of fast internet. Across Africa, 3G coverage has been associated with a reduction in extreme poverty, with reductions of 10% seen in Senegal and 4.3% in Nigeria.

Curious to learn more about the internet? Check out this animated chart that shows the most popular web browsers since 1994.

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