The changes happening in digital payments today are being driven by fintech innovators improving almost every way that people and businesses exchange and manage their money.
The Uber of X boom is affecting every industry and innovative companies responded and achieved market share by focusing on products that serve the unmet needs of these companies. But innovative products need to be accompanied by strong distribution strategies that drive market share from incumbents and stay relevant.
A natural progression is that as the market evolves, the focus on product is joined by pressure to distribute and service customers. Running parallel to these developments in fintech are large companies with more traditional products who are struggling for growth and slow to innovate in the face of changing business norms.
In recent years the big players have taken notice of the innovations in fintech, and in a sign of maturation of the market, as well as leadership from smart executive teams, weve seen prominent names acquire fintech disruptors. PayPal acquired Braintree Braintree acquired Venmo even before that and Vantiv acquired Mercury. Going forward, we can expect that leading companies will find a way to absorb startups while rewarding entrepreneurs and investors for pushing innovation forward and opening completely new markets.
Similar to the emergence of marketplaces, we see similar first movers taking advantage of the opportunity for disruption in B2B payments and small business solutions.
These companies are shifting market share and getting the attention of companies through focused product offerings and differentiation from traditional payments through better usability, and ease of integration.
Digital payments is a massive industry that will support multiple winners and will always rely on new transformative technologies to drive the industry forward. Recent considerations are not an indication that the market is waning, but rather that is growing, becoming stronger, and opening to new competitive innovations.
Jay Bhattacharya is CEO and co-founder of Zipmark.
