An emerging industry where companies use technology to provide financial services in a productive, easy-to-use, and reliable way. FINTECH originated from the fusion of FINANCE + TECHNOLOGY.
In other words, Fintech refers to new applications, processes, products, or business models in the financial services industry, offering various types of financial services across many markets.
In Mexico, FINTECH considers the most important pillars to be:
- Payment methods and transfers
- Infrastructure for financial services
- Digital credit origination
- Personal finance
- Financial entities
- Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain
among many others, these being the key pillars of the sector.
Why do we turn to fintech instead of banks? The Bank of Mexico, with the aim of promoting the proper functioning of payment systems and the healthy development of the financial system, developed the Interbank Electronic Payment System (SPEI). It operates as a core system that allows both participants and their clients to make payments of any amount (wholesale and retail), end-to-end, in real time (5 seconds on average), under mechanisms designed to maintain a high level of security and efficiency. In this way, SPEI offers a broader range of operations than those offered by other real-time payment systems operated by central banks in other countries, which only allow bank participation for high-value payments and leave the private sector to establish retail payment platforms that typically offer payment services within 24 to 48 hours. This is precisely what led banks to adopt this strategy themselves.