Читать книгу Embedded Finance - Scarlett Sieber - Страница 18

As mentioned earlier, one of the important consequences of the 2008 financial crisis was setting up the conditions for fintech to flourish. Technology companies could now offer services previously only available from regulated financial services entities. The growing use of e-commerce, accelerated by the adoption of mobile internet, increased the need for financial services available literally at consumers’ fingertips.

The two areas where new companies first made inroads into banking were payments and lending. PayPal, arguably the first big “fintech” that the world became accustomed to, founded in 1999, was already invading banks’ territory by enabling payments online. While there were many other payments startups that have had an impact post-PayPal, the next big shift happened in the mid-2000s with the several new lending startups. Prosper (founded 2005) and Lending Club (2006) were well positioned to take over unsecured personal loans as nearly every bank pulled back from this endeavor that brought much risk and little profit. Banks held back on lending even as economic activity increased post-recession and the demand for loans grew from both small businesses and consumers. Regulations greatly increased on banks, making lending to these customers more complex and technically challenging. Continued low interest rates also made lending less enticing to banks (and saving less enticing to consumers).