Why is Fintech 1.0 still called fintech?
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I increasingly feel that a large part of what gets called "fintech" today isn't actually financial technology in the sense most people imagine.
When I hear the word fintech, I think of technology creating new possibilities. I think of new infrastructure, new ways of moving value, new forms of identity, settlement, ownership, and exchange. I think of technology changing what is possible.
Yet much of the industry seems to be doing something quite different. Many companies are essentially taking existing banking systems, existing card networks, existing settlement processes and existing financial institutions, then building a better interface on top. The experience is often much better, the design is cleaner, onboarding is faster, and customers benefit from that. But has the underlying financial system actually changed?
A debit card with a better app is still a debit card. A bank account opened in three minutes is still a bank account. A payment that ultimately travels through the same networks and follows the same rules feels more like a software improvement than a financial revolution.
That doesn't make these businesses bad. Many are excellent businesses. Some have created enormous value. But I struggle with calling them technology innovators when the technology itself is often serving as a wrapper around infrastructure that has existed for decades.
To me, the more interesting companies are the ones asking whether money, identity and settlement should work differently in the first place. Whether value can move without relying on traditional intermediaries. Whether payments can become as simple as sending a message. Whether digital identity can replace account numbers. Whether entirely new forms of financial interaction can exist because technology now allows them to.
Those companies may fail. Many probably will. But at least they're attempting to push the boundaries of what financial technology can be.
So I'm curious where others stand on this.
Is a better user experience on top of legacy infrastructure enough to qualify as fintech, or should the term be reserved for companies that are genuinely building new financial infrastructure and new ways of moving value?
And if everything from a neobank to a stablecoin network sits under the same label, has the word "fintech" become so broad that it no longer means very much at all?