The WEALTHTECH Book

9What is the Future of WealthTech?

Executive Summary

Many industries have already been transformed by digitization. Among the most prominent examples are the media or the music industry. Just as with those, the banking industry deals with information as the primary “good” delivered to customers. Thus, a networked customer equipped with technology is the starting point of all future developments. This leads to a fundamental shift from the providers to the customers – who will benefit from this development, as they will get more banking for less money. But there will also be changes on the provider side, driven by new technologies like cryptocurrencies, blockchain, artificial intelligence, etc. While many are still sceptical about cryptocurrencies, for example, we will soon see new application areas in cross-country trading or central banks issuing their own currencies as digital coins. This leads to new questions regarding security, etc. But does this mean that we can expect a new financial order? Four drivers might spur this development in the future:

• First, the emerging peer-to-peer economy will lead to a fundamental change in how economies work in the future. This peer-to-peer ...