Fintech 2025: The Next Wave

When building product is easier, the competition moves to customer acquisition. That was the core insight behind Unit: Fintech 1.0 was about products; Fintech 2.0 is about audiences.

The first wave of fintech innovators mainly came after the banks. Those were dissatisfied with expensive products, secretive business, slow digitalization, and poor customer experience. As a result, we’ve seen them unbundling banks.

Just as the internet and web browser unlocked the previous shift, the new ease of embedding payments, lending, and other financial products will allow industry-specific software platforms (Vertical SaaS) to destroy multi-market/horizontal solutions like Salesforce. Ever smaller niches will be able to sustain venture-scale software companies because... See more