FinTech Startup Ideas to Watch Out for in 2022

The term FinTech usually refers to the latest technologies aimed to automate and streamline the delivery of banking and other financial services. It comprises all the existing digital products that help us manage finance. They include banking applications, investment apps like Robinhood that allow us to trade assets, budgeting apps like Mint that can be used for saving up for large goals, Venmo that helps us share expenses, and dozens of other digital products.

Even if you don’t realize it yet, FinTech has become a great part of our daily and business lives. This can be proved by the latest statistics:

• the number of financial technology startups has doubled in the past few years: It grew from 12,000 in 2019 to 26,000 in 2022
• venture capital investment in FinTech has reached $40 billion per year
• the global mobile payment market was worth $1.97 trillion in 2021

These facts prove that FinTech products have become an integral part of people’s lives, while investors are eager to provide funding for cool app ideas.

In this article, we collected some information about leading FinTech concepts and cool financial app ideas that can serve as a source of inspiration for those who are just planning to start their own business or develop a FinTech product.

Learn more about digital product development and cool startup ideas in Stories and articles.

If you are going to create a new FinTech startup and want to develop software from scratch, our team is ready to help you. Ronas IT is a company that creates digital solutions for small businesses and startups. We have already been on the market for 15 years and helped our clients launch more than 400 successful projects in the fields of FinTech, team management, business automation, and delivery. So, don’t hesitate and contact us to discuss your idea.

Neobank

When we start thinking about banking, we often associate it with huge piles of paperwork, bank employees who are always in a hurry, and a huge number of ATMs. Neobanks are ready to dispel our stereotypes as they are purely digital-based. They are financial services startups that provide users with applications and other types of software that can streamline online banking. These banks usually don’t have physical branches and offer low-fee financial services.

We shifted from traditional banking to digital one during the lockdowns of 2020, when we all had to stay at home and manage our finances only by digital means. To add, neobanks usually give us such perks as higher interest rates, low fees, and a high level of data security. So, it became far more convenient for us to manage our money using smooth and intuitive interfaces rather than crowding in brick-and-mortar banks.

Unlike traditional banks that make money by providing and earning interest from loans, neobanks earn their money from the interchange, which is a sum of money paid by merchants when their customers purchase goods and services using debit cards.

To understand how big the demand in neobanks is, let’s look at the following bar chart and stats.

What’s more, the global neobank transaction value for 2022 is expected to reach $4.02 trillion, while the neobank market is projected to show an annual growth rate of 22.49%.

This field has great potential and it can be proved both by impressive stats and inspiring FinTech project examples such as Chime neobank. It is one of the most recognized brands in the field of neobanks with more than 12 million customers. The company releases its client from paying fees that traditional banks usually require and doesn’t have minimum balance requirements. Due to these conveniences and the rising popularity of neobanks, the number of Chime users grew from 8 million in 2021 to 12 million in 2022.

If you are going to build your own neobank and want to stand out from other similar products, you can try targeting a specific audience as Pockit or Karat do.

Pockit aims to help unbanked people to receive financial services. Such groups as migrants, refugees, people living on benefits, or people with low credit scores can receive the help of Pockit. It provides users with an opportunity to free themselves from using cash. With its help, users can receive their benefits and wages directly to their banking account, make transfers and savings, and get cashback after checkouts.

Karat is a neobank whose target audience is influencers and content makers. This neobank offers its services to those who have a lot of followers on social networks and gain solid income. The more followers the influencer has, the more perks they receive.

Ronas IT insight: FinTech applications can be released to the App Store only if they are owned by a company that is declared to be a financial organization. Otherwise, the developed app can be rejected. So, our experience shows that it’s important to solve all the law issues before developing FinTech software.

Trading app

The main goal of stock trading apps is to give users an opportunity to sell and buy assets with a zero or low commission. Mobile stock trading saw a spike in usage during the pandemic as many people were stuck at home and became attracted to the idea of buying and selling shares, indices, and options.

Like all the other brokerages, the owners of the trading software make a profit by requesting commissions and fees. They require users to pay a percentage for every transaction they make. The low-cost business model as well as technological advancement made online trading an attractive source of income. Here are key facts about online trading majors and the global market:

• Robinhood, one of the top FinTech startups in the field of stock trading, had 22.5 million users in 2021 and made $682 million in revenue in 2020
• the size of the global online trade market is $8.28 billion
• Webull saw 2.69 million monthly users in July 2022

If you are thinking about creating a trading or an investment platform you should make it attractive both for newcomers and experienced investors. To help the newcomers gain profit with your platform, add clear onboarding, powerful research tools, and different types of accounts. Also, try keeping your transaction fees low, so the users don’t choose other brokerages instead the one that you offer.

One way to break away from your competitors is to provide your users with AI-powered solutions that help them improve their trading strategy. That’s what Tickeron, one of the best FinTech startups, does. It provides several robots that offer different trading strategies. The users can choose the one that suits them and follow the advice of the chosen AI robot. The platform provides statistics that reflect the performance of each robot, so users can find out which of them brings the biggest profit.

Budgeting app

Every time we try to build a useful habit, we may need some technical support from the mobile apps. The ability to control your expenses can be easily obtained with budgeting apps. They are FinTech products that help users to track and optimize their spending and savings. This type of app can synchronize with other financial apps and allows users to manage their monthly cash flow and recurring bill payment, track spending, analyze financial habits as well as set saving goals.

There are two basic ways a budgeting app can make money. First of all, it can sell premium subscriptions with additional functionalities. App owners, who use this method, can increase and decrease prices depending on their business needs. Besides, they can display adverts in their applications.

The fact that about 75% of users on the globe have at least one app to manage their finances proves that the demand for budgeting and personal finance startups is expected to grow in the upcoming years.

When developing your own budgeting app, you may need to add tools for connecting to other financial apps, tracking spending and savings, push notifications about bill payments, and features for setting budgeting goals. It would be a nice idea to add gamification to keep users motivated and help them reach their goals. Also, you have to establish a high level of security, as your app is going to deal with banking data and logins. Moreover, the app should have customer service in case some technical issues occur.

Another would-be-great idea is to implement an envelope system in your application. This system is used by Goodbudget, which has earned a reputation as one of the cool FinTech companies. The envelope system means that you physically divide your money into envelopes labeled with different purposes like entertainment, grocery, clothes, and others. In the Goodbudget app, you can do the same digitally. This system proved to be good for managing shared household budgets, saving for large purchases, or paying down debts.

Money app for kids

Money apps for kids aim to make FinTech simple for children and teenagers under 18 years of age and teach them financial literacy. By using such applications, kids can try to make spending decisions, develop budgets to stick to, make investments, use credit and debit cards as well as save for secure retirement. When kids learn to be financially literate from an early age, they become aware of the financial risks, so they are less likely to go bankrupt or get into debt when they grow older.

This kind of app usually charges users money for access to the content or for a subscription. They can also provide items for in-app sales like books, game packages, or extra lives as well as display adverts. The latter is not the best idea, as financial apps can be used by kids of all ages. It was proved by Common Sense Media that kids under 8 years old don’t understand what the advertisement is and perceive it as entertainment content.

There are a few facts that can prove the credibility of this startup idea. Recent surveys held in the UK have shown that 61% of kids between 10 and 15 years use money apps to save their pocket money. Also, the growth of FinTech startups for kids has recently exploded. Gohenry is a startup that provides software for raising financial literacy among children. During the period between 2021 and 2022, the app saw a huge influx of new users. Right now it has about 1,000,000 paid users, and its 5-year growth reached 1260%.

The best money software for children presents features both for kids and for their parents. It would be a good idea to add typical features of the banking apps that allow users to transfer and receive money. Also, this kind of software should provide clear dashboards and financial tips on how to maximize the money you have.

Inclusive FinTech app

If you ever wondered what financial inclusion startups are, here’s the answer! They are the companies that provide FinTech software for underserved groups of people. With their help, people from poor households get access to financial services like insurance, credit, transactions, and others. It was estimated that in 2017 1.7 billion people were unbanked. Financial inclusion startups aim to change the situation. They have already helped underserved people from 80 countries to move from cash-based deals to mobile-based transactions.

Financial inclusion digital products can provide loans with no collateral, deliver insurance programs to rural areas, take part in bulk purchases to save money, and bring other conveniences. You can learn more about the financial inclusion mission and most prominent companies at Inclusive FinTech 50, which is a competition for startups in this field.

If you are looking to start a business in the field of financial inclusion, make your digital product as simple and intuitive as possible. Provide detailed onboarding, keep your fees low and provide customer support that can help users to deal with an application, as it might be completely new for them. To add, these apps should run equally well on up-to-date smartphones as well as on older devices with weak processors and batteries.

Let’s sum it up!

No matter which type of FinTech software you are going to develop, there are essential features that are most likely to increase your customers’ loyalty. The financial apps should have clear navigation and display various types of search options. To add, they should provide a personalized experience and provide users with virtual assistants and personalized tips. Also, FinTech apps should have a high level of data security. One way to provide it is to add several sign-in options using up-to-date technologies like biometrics, fingerprint readers, codes, or face recognition.

All the other features will depend on your business idea, budget, and type of application that you want to get.

Do you have a FinTech startup idea?

Then it’s high time to send us a message. Ronas IT is a full-cycle IT company, and we have profound experience in working with FinTech products. We’ve been on the market for 15 years, and during that period we have launched more than 35 FinTech products with stock trading apps, betting apps, and budget planning software among them. We can identify your business goals, run user research, and finally create an intuitive and scalable digital product for your business.

Learn more about Ronas IT services.