Fighting for Their Financial Freedom: Millennials Reinventing FinTech
And as indicated by such emerging social constructs as the post-college group house, Millennials are essentially stuck in the bottom tiers of the needs pyramid — not only can’t they save for big purchases, but they are also postponing milestone life events such as getting a place of one’s own, marriage and family.
Ergo you could say that millennials – even more so than the capitalist generation before them (i.e. the wolves of Wall Street) – are obsessed with money. And how it holds them back.
At the same time, Millennials are very facile with their mobile financial apps and rely heavily on them for financial information, services and purchase decisioning. They may have big brand bank accounts, but to them the brick and mortar branch, the ATM, even physical money– are becoming less relevant.
All the above lays the groundwork for continued massive disruption in financial services as Millennials fixate and act on their [lack of] money obsession and the status quo education and financial systems that have literally left them living in their parents’ basements.
And thus driven by the financially disenfranchised (but still optimistic) Millennials, a new FinTech Renaissance is emerging. From alternative methods of lending like SoFi ($1 billion capital raised in Sept. 2015 to help consumers refinance their student loans) to services focused on helping consumers to understand and take control of their credit scores (Credit Karma raised $175 million in June 2015), to bitcoin and other cryptocurrency technology that represent a new payment rail and partial replacement for fiat ($1 billion+ investment in 2015 with blockchain development companies like Chain raising $30 million), Millennials are taking down – or at least making less relevant — the traditional financial power structure one sector at a time.
Over the course of the next year, we’ll take a look at some of the emerging financial services disruptors and trends coming out of Y-Combinator and other incubators and launchpads such as Draper FinTech Connection and Plug and Play’s Fintech Accelerator.