Huge institutions, archaic systems and lots of money at stake. These are the conditions that have brought tech entrepreneurs to the wildly exciting and growing arena of financial tech.Both venture capitalists and Wall Street are rushing into the space, investing $10.5 billion in fintech startups during the first nine months of 2015, up from $3.9 billion in the same period last year. and For Korea, If the government were willing to lower barriers to entry, the ongoing development of the country’s financial sector could help restructure the service sector by making more capital available to underwrite innovation and boost investment.
Fintech companies, as they’ve come to be called, are easing payment processes, reducing fraud, saving users money, promoting financial planning, and ultimately moving a giant industry forward. As 2015 draws to a close, here are 5 Fintech companies which will be interesting to watch in 2016 in Korea:
1. Toss : Toss provides a shockingly easy and intuitive UX while avoiding the complicated remittance process which currently plagues Korean consumers. Transferring with Toss only takes three steps; all you have to do is enter the name of recipient, transfer amount, and your password. You can also transfer funds using the recipient's phone number without knowing his or her bank account number. In this case, the recipient can enter his/her own bank account number to receive the funds. The recipient is also not required to install the Toss app to receive money, which differentiates Toss from other P2P money transfer services.
2. FUNDA : P2P lending platform that targets only local retail stores. It is impossible for stores to borrow money without collateral, and banks typically offer loans at tremendous interest rates. FUNDA allows individual investors to give loans to small shops and retail stores.
3. 8percent : 8percent is a leading p2p lending startup in Korea. 8percent is an online financial community that brings together creditworthy borrowers and savvy investors so that both can benefit financially. We replace the high cost and complexity of bank lending with a faster, smarter way to borrow and invest.
4. Banksalad : Banksalad is the first service in South Korea which normalizes 260,000 raw data that were collected by our engineers down to 157 columns. By doing so, we provide credit cards recommendation based on user's lifestyle and purchase behavior. Since it's launching in 2014, over 25,603 users saved average amount of 4% from their previous consumption.
5. Stocks Plus for Kakao : ‘Stocks Plus for Kakao’ allows users to easily check their stock quotes in real-time through Kakaotalk, It has a social feature through which users can see which stocks their friends are keeping track of. The app was able to achieve 20 million page views and 1 trillion cumulative turnover. The partnership with Kiwoom and Mirae asset made it possible to adopt the function to trade stocks directly and discussion for more partnerships with other major stock companies is still in progress.
Source : beginning
