Democratizing fintech: Enabling financial services for all through open source banking

A convergence of trends and technologies is enabling the democratization of financial servicesbig data, AI, the cloud, smartphone ubiquity, national IDs, blockchain, and open banking. However, there's one missing factoropen source bankingthat will scale the movement and unlock financial services for all, from the unbanked in India to the underbanked in America.

While big data, AI, the cloud, smartphone ubiquity, national IDs, blockchain, and open banking are all making it easier for new financial services to be designed and delivered, there is still a critical barrier—core banking infrastructure. Outdated architecture, costly licenses, specialized consultants—all of these prohibit accessible financial services from being brought to scale. Mifos Initiative’s disruptive approach to open source banking is leveling the playing field and enabling new and incumbent players to take advantage of these powerful trends and transformative technologies. Open source banking is the final piece. By providing a common technology infrastructure, open source banking can analyze that customer data finally made accessible via open banking, deliver a seamless banking experience via the mobile phone, harness the power of the cloud, connect into distributed ledger and digital payments, and more. Open source banking lowers costs, frees up IT teams to focus on innovation, and enables greater security and extensibility to new devices and delivery channels. Edward Cable explores these enabling technologies through real-world case studies demonstrating how fintech companies and traditional financial institutions in the ecosystem are delivering new financial services on top of open source banking infrastructure and leveraging it as an accelerant of these new enabling technologies. Case studies include: