Our Take On '23 Predictions
Can anyone really predict what the future holds, especially when it comes to the ever-changing world of money?!
Who in the F knows!
But hey, predicting where to place your bet before knowing the final score is pretty much our day job! So, without further ado, here's our best shot on where the industry is headed👇
Unicorns will become history as we’ll see the creation of centaurs… a combination of man and beast… or of Fintech and ? The expected ones are banks, but we could see retailers, telecoms and tech companies get into the action as well. The driver behind this trend will be the funding environment coupled with greater ability of acquirers to see or anticipate value creation.
2023 will see more acquisitions in the payments sector as bigger Fintechs look to consolidate in a market with less cash available than previous years. Tipping point incoming…
With fuel prices and profits being high, there will be great interest in green energy sources. With the war in Ukraine continuing, the danger to current nuclear plants, the extraordinary heat/fires and droughts of last summer, and the very hopeful breakthrough in fusion, climate change and energy will be at the forefront of problems to solve. And climate fintech will be central.
No really, embedded finance was one of the buzz words of 2022 but in many cases (maybe outside of the US given some of the new laws/regulation) this will be the year we will start seeing embedded finance being implemented across geographies in key ways with big pay offs.
Many banks and BaaS companies are going to go under and the banks are going to have consent orders all over the place. Some charters might get revoked.
That said, I hear Scottie Pippen is bullish on NFTs so I’ll be watching that closely as well.
The freemium model we’ve become so accustomed with from fintechs (be it digital banks or BNPLs) is going to come to an end.
The age of free money (zero interest rates) is over, that’s not just going to make it more expensive for VCs to fund fintechs, it’ll also reduce the amount of capital available for funding (as high interest rates make earning low-risk but sizable returns more likely).
The idea that everything should be either centralised or decentralised was never going to last. Now that DeFi has stuck around for a while, many of those working within it have begrudgingly seen the merit of traditional systems. Likewise, older institutions have grasped that they can’t bury their heads in the sand. 2023 is the year to start asking, ‘what should, and what shouldn’t, we decentralise?’
But yes, expect skirmishes. The eldest DeFi sibling, Bitcoin, is still a teenager after all.
Look- that’s the plan. And he has the friends that can help him do it.
Regardless of which predictions become true or not, you’re gonna need to know how to come out on top in '23. And the only way to do that is by joining us at Money20/20 USA!