Read Client Stories
Alex Kugell
Key Takeaways
- Digital wallets now carry 53% of global e-commerce value but 32% of in-store value, so they lead online and still trail cards and cash at the till, according to the FIS Global Payments Report 2025.
- Neobanks and embedded finance keep expanding the definition of who counts as a financial services company, with payment features increasingly showing up inside products that have nothing to do with banking on the surface.
- AI now touches nearly every category on this list, from fraud detection to credit decisions to robo-advisory, which has real implications for what engineering teams need to be able to build and secure.
- Biometric authentication has moved from a nice-to-have to the expected default for anything handling money, driven as much by user trust as by security requirements.
- Digital providers tend to charge meaningfully less than banks to send money abroad, and the World Bank’s tracked global average remittance cost has hovered near 6.4% in recent years, so that gap remains one of fintech’s most obvious opportunities.
Fortune Business Insights projected in 2023 that fintech would reach about $882 billion by 2030, though published estimates vary widely because firms define the market differently.
The solutions driving that growth are specific products people use daily. Let’s take a look at what’s actually shaping banking and payments right now, including:
- Digital Wallets and Mobile Payments
- Peer-to-Peer Payment Platforms
- AI-Powered Personal Finance Tools
- Robo-Advisors and Automated Investing
- Blockchain and Crypto Platforms
- Digital-Only Neobanks
- Embedded Finance and APIs
- Mobile Lending and Credit Solutions
- Biometric and Secure Authentication
- Cross-Border Payment and Remittance Services
- Regtech and Compliance Automation
Understanding why these solutions are sitting at the forefront of the industry is essential to set your own firm up for success.
At Trio, we specialize in fintech app development, providing skilled talent through outsourcing and staff augmentation to help you implement your roadmaps while staying compliant.
What Are Fintech Solutions?
Fintech solutions are the products and platforms, mobile or otherwise, that let people and businesses work with money. The most common forms let them move it, borrow it, or invest it without going through a traditional bank branch.
In business settings, the phrase carries a second meaning: the software and infrastructure that banks and fintech companies buy to run their operations, such as core banking systems, payment orchestration, API-first banking platforms, and KYC and AML tooling.
In this case, we will focus on the consumer-facing products, and the final section covers what building them takes.
The reason fintech apps are doing so well can largely be attributed to the fact that, with smartphones now widespread, mobile has become the default surface for nearly all of this activity.
11 Fintech Solutions Shaping the Industry
While fintech is by no means new, there are a couple of different solutions that are massively changing the way people work with money.
1. Digital Wallets and Mobile Payments
Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal have made contactless, tokenized payment the norm online, where wallets carry about 53% of e-commerce value, and a fast-growing option in stores, where they carry about 32%.
First, they have provided incredible convenience to users. However, the security model itself (encryption plus tokenization rather than transmitting raw card numbers) is a meaningful part of why users trust these platforms with everyday spending.
2. Peer-to-Peer Payment Platforms
Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App move money between individuals almost instantly (P2P), without needing the infrastructure a business-facing payment system requires.
This has made splitting a bill or paying a friend back essentially frictionless in a way traditional banking never managed, again providing users with convenience and solving a common problem.
3. AI-Powered Personal Finance Tools
Budgeting and personal finance apps now use AI and machine learning to analyze spending patterns and large quantities of qualitative data to provide insights in real time, including some trends humans might not have been able to pick up on.
In recent years especially, these tools have moved well past simple expense categorization, toward genuinely personalized financial guidance.
4. Robo-Advisors and Automated Investing
Using algorithms that build and rebalance portfolios, platforms like Wealthfront and Betterment have made professional-grade portfolio management accessible at a price point that simply didn’t exist for retail investors a decade ago. Teams adding AI-assisted features on top can look to our AI developers.
Now, basic tiers rarely involve humans at all, and instead use algorithmic decision-making informed by risk tolerance and goals, allowing clients to avoid an advisor’s hourly rate.
5. Blockchain and Crypto Platforms
Coinbase and similar platforms let users buy, hold, and move digital assets on blockchain networks outside traditional banking rails.
With all the activity around stablecoins, the broader question of where blockchain-based finance ultimately settles is still genuinely open, but the infrastructure built to support it has matured considerably.
6. Digital-Only Neobanks
Chime, which works through partner banks, and Revolut, which holds banking licenses in several markets, offer everyday banking without a physical branch.
This provides two benefits to users. First, the cost savings from that model let them offer things like no-fee accounts and early direct deposit that traditional banks structurally can’t match as easily.
Second, the fact that they have no physical locations means that they offer all their services through their mobile and web apps, allowing them to provide these services to clients in remote locations.
7. Embedded Finance and APIs
Providers like Plaid and Stripe let non-financial platforms offer real financial services.
This has facilitated e-commerce sites accepting payments, gig platforms offering instant payouts, and much more, without companies ever needing to become banks themselves.
This is one of the fastest-growing categories on this list specifically because it lets a company offer financial services through a licensed partner without building the whole regulatory stack itself.
The model shifts risk rather than removing it: when middleware provider Synapse filed for bankruptcy in April 2024, the CFPB said a shortfall of $60 million to $90 million left consumers unable to reach their funds for weeks or months.
8. Mobile Lending and Credit Solutions
Upstart and similar platforms use AI-driven risk models that look past a traditional credit score.
Doing so, they extend credit access to people the old scoring system underserved, like people who have never had a traditional rental agreement but may have paid other bills on time.
At the same time, these alternative models manage risk through richer underlying data, making them an asset even in more traditional credit solutions due to the bigger picture they provide.
9. Biometric and Secure Authentication
Fingerprint and facial recognition have become the default way people unlock banking apps and digital wallets, backed by a password as a fallback rather than the primary method.
This shift is driven as much by user trust and convenience as it is by raw security improvement. However, older devices may struggle with this.
10. Cross-Border Payment and Remittance Services
Wise and similar digital providers charge far less than banks, and World Bank data has consistently shown digital-only transfers costing a fraction of what banks charge on a typical remittance.
The overall global average cost has hovered near 6.4% in recent years, more than double the UN’s 3% target, which is why instant cross-border payments remain an active build area.
This has had a positive effect on both individuals sending money home and businesses paying international contractors or remote teams.
11. Regtech and Compliance Automation
As fintech products scale, whether in terms of services offered or regions served, so does regulatory obligation.
A market has been created for platforms specializing in automated KYC, AML monitoring, and compliance reporting, since manual compliance processes simply don’t scale to real transaction volume.
Some teams that we work with are also experimenting with creating custom tools to automate as much of the compliance in-house as possible.
Why These Solutions Keep Growing
As mentioned several times already, convenience is the most obvious driver.
Financial services that are accessible at the tap of a button beat a branch visit by almost any measure, even when people have access to said branches in the first place.
However, we have noticed that cost matters just as much. Fintech products without physical branch overhead can offer meaningfully lower fees, which has genuinely expanded access to financial services for people traditional banking priced out or simply never reached.
Beyond that, as technology improves and it becomes easier to, for example, send real-time international payments, the market is becoming increasingly competitive. Rising security and compliance costs are the other side of that competition.
What This Means for Building in Fintech
Every solution carries real engineering weight.
AI-driven fraud detection and credit scoring need to be explainable given regulatory scrutiny around automated decisions. Embedded finance means API design and documentation quality directly affect adoption.
Biometric authentication needs correct fallback handling. And cross-border payments carry compliance obligations that can vary a great deal by corridor and currency.
Building any of these well requires engineers who’ve actually worked inside regulated financial systems before.
If you’re building any of these solutions and need engineers with real fintech production experience, Trio places pre-vetted developers through staff augmentation or outsourcing models. Before choosing a partner, read our questions to ask a fintech outsourcing partner.
