Banking apps have become the most popular way to manage money. Going out for dinner or drinks with your friends doesn’t have to involve asking waiters for separate checks or collecting mounts of cash around the table and struggling with change any more.
A lot of remote professionals all over the world are using online money transfer apps to get paid. Most people aren’t walking around their hometowns with cash anymore. In fact, most of us are opting for online financial companies that are entirely online.
If you’ve stepped into a bank branch recently, you’ve probably noticed that it’s mostly an older crowd that’s there. Nobody has the whole day to queue in a bank anymore and let’s not even get started on getting there and finding parking.
There are apps for everything now, money can be transferred within seconds, and the whole financial industry is changing thanks to that. FinTech, at this point, isn’t just a buzzword that’s going to get some attention and then die down. It’s got its own definition in the Merriam Webster Dictionary.
These advancements in the industry have severely changed how our generation runs errands, goes out, pays the rent, and even how we think about and handle our money. Financial and fiscal planning apps are popping up everywhere, and we can use our devices to pay for more and more things on the go.
Stop Walking Around With Cash in Your Pocket
Everyone knows that walking around with cash on you is very risky. Whether you’re just headed to the corner store to buy something quick, or you’re meeting your friends for a night out in the town, having cash on you increases the risk of losing it.
Credit cards are only slightly safer. If they get stolen, you have to call your bank, cancel your cards, go to the bank, and wait for other cards to be issued. This takes time, is tedious, and quite energy-draining. What if you could pay for everything with your phone?
Your phone is only one item you have to make sure to have on you, rather than phone, cash, debit cards, and credit cards. You can download a lot of payment apps on your smart device, and make sure you never have to worry about bulky wallets anymore.
An app on your smart device works either with face recognition or your fingerprint, and there’s no excuse not to use this advantage to avoid getting robbed. There’s an app to save your financial info, an app to track your spending, and even an app for laundry.
Getting a Loan and Paying for It
Need a quick loan? It’s hard to fit in a whole bunch of branch visits, runs to Xerox to print your documents, and endless meetings into our busy schedules. A lot of loaners are now switching to a completely online process.
You can go on their website, enter your information, and let the work do itself. No more waiting in lines and driving into town. You can check out a lot of companies, read their reviews, and even research what kind of loan terms work with your credit history and your income.
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency and blockchain are FinTech’s biggest advancements. Whether or not you think it’s the future, you know it’s gaining a lot of momentum. It’s definitely taking the market apart, and whether governments and big banks want to admit it or not, it’s taking over.
To put it simply, it’s digital money that is secure because it uses cryptography. Your transactions and your banking information are encrypted and cannot be tracked. It’s like hiding your money and your private information in an impossible-to-solve maze.
While it doesn’t have a center or an authority to oversee and manage it all yet, it can be used for a myriad of things, including online shopping, investing, and currency exchange. The new digital currency makes money transfers not only faster and more comfortable but also much safer.
Furthermore, because it’s a new, free, and encrypted market, you dodge unnecessarily high banking and currency exchange fees. Wire transfers are expensive, and nobody wants to pay their bank a fee for work someone else has done for their business.
Go Electronic
It wasn’t a smooth transition but has recently just become easier than 1, 2, 3. Big banks are switching to online banking for all your banking needs. Laundromats are accepting mobile payments. Corner stores are letting you pay with your phone.
This is a revolutionary time for how we deal with money and how we budget. A lot of these apps are helping a lot of young people stay on top of their budgets and monthly payments. FinTech is making dealing with money easier, faster, and, most importantly, safer.