After extensive growth worldwide, FinTech is now developing very fast. In the last couple of years, with significant investments developing, the industry is getting more and more widely known.

Today there are more than 1300 companies in the sphere and growing. Only in 2015, FinTech in the UK has produced revenue of more than £6.6 billion.  London, Manchester, Leeds, and Belfast are leading cities in the UK now.

The industry has had a fantastic growth of investments in it (51% worldwide) which resulted in a great rising of revenues (120% only in Europe) which made the sector the one with the fastest growing revenues in the world. But it’s not enough to just invest in the sector, you have to wisely choose the company you will be investing in and then you’ll get great revenues.

Not diving too deep into numbers, let’s take a look at these: in just three years (2013–2016) the investments in global FinTech has increased from four billion to 30 billion pounds.

It seems that society is becoming “uncashed” and traditional methods of physical payments are losing their position and giving way to digital alternatives.

But which innovations are the most important for business owners and retailers?

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is a system with an open source code that allows the sides exchanging funding to have it digitized and not use banks as centralized regulatory authority. Bitcoin is probably one of the brightest examples of such currencies and several companies are already actively using it, for example, online gaming platform Steam, tourist agency Expedia, and Wikipedia, which accepts donations in this currency.

An obstacle preventing people from using bitcoins was security and potential risks of being hacked, not even talking about the possibility of sharp decrease of currency value. Online retailers should look at the opportunity of accepting crypto-conversion as taking place in a quite small group of brands, which accept the kind of payment as Bitcoin and this would become a great advantage among the competition.

NFC

NFC uses the technology of contactless cards. It transfers a small amount of data, for example, banking details, through the wireless connection between two devices that accept NFC.

NFC also works with digital cards such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

Consumers love this new technology and in Great Britain, it is established by law that by 2020 all outlets should be contactless.

Digital cards

Digital cards, like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay allow customers to have access to several cards using only one mobile device. More than half (52%) of 18–24 years-olds prefer digital cards to cash or credit cards, saying that the opportunity to track their purchases is a great advantage.

Why invest in a new payment technology?

There are many advantages of investing in new payment technologies. While clients, especially young ones, are moving toward cashless ways of purchasing products, companies risk staying on the periphery if they will only stay with traditional practices.

Convenience and high speed are key benefits of the new technologies; that’s why an inability to fulfill expectations can force your clients to go for a new and more technically progressive competitor.