Financial technology, or FinTech, is the broad category of software, platforms, and digital infrastructure that enables individuals and businesses to access, manage, and transact money outside — or alongside — the traditional banking system.
The term is a portmanteau of "finance" and "technology," in use since at least 1967 but popularized in the early 1990s when Citigroup used it to describe a collaborative initiative for technological cooperation across financial institutions. Modern FinTech is understood as innovation-forward financial technology — not every tool a bank uses qualifies, but rather the layer of applications that meaningfully redefine how financial products are designed, delivered, or accessed. Core categories include digital banking and neobanks, payments infrastructure, online lending and credit, investment and wealthtech, cryptocurrency and 📝blockchain technology, insurance (see 📝InsurTech), and regulatory compliance tooling (RegTech). The global FinTech market is projected to approach $700 billion by 2030, up from a fraction of that a decade prior, driven by mobile adoption, API-first infrastructure, and AI-powered underwriting and fraud detection.
FinTech's defining social contribution is financial inclusion — expanding access to credit, payments, and savings tools for populations underserved by legacy institutions. The World Bank estimated that roughly 24% of adults globally lacked access to regulated financial services as recently as 2021; mobile-first FinTech products have materially reduced that gap, particularly in developing markets. Regulation remains the most persistent structural tension in the category: FinTech companies frequently operate under different — and often less stringent — rules than the banks they compete with or partner with, creating consumer protection risks that regulators are still working to close.