Ant Financial, Paytm and other digital payment companies are changing the bank-led payment system

According to a new study by SharesPost, the $110 trillion market capitalization payment industry is facing further major challenges from the financial technology revolution，this will revolutionize the traditional financial services industry and create new opportunities for venture capital firms with groundbreaking technologies.

Today, consumers pay bills, transfer money, and buy goods and services via smartphones. The belief is that cryptocurrencies and blockchain will be the latest technology to transform the payments industry.

The $1.75 trillion industry, which includes credit CARDS, account-related liquidity, cross-border transactions and domestic transactions for consumers and businesses, will grow at an annual rate of 7 percent over the next three years.

Smartphones make the current payments account for 34% of the overall banking business, compared with only 27% in 2011. Growth in developing countries in Asia and Latin America will bring this figure to 36% by 2021.

The global payment industry offers more than $100 trillion trillion in market opportunities, several of which have a market size of at least $1 trillion.

Cheques, credit cards and other forms of non-cash payments occupy the largest share of the market, up to $55 trillion.

The payment industry also covers a wide range of services, includes account services for large banks, cross-border payments, global remittances, and peer-to money transfers through applications such as WeChat and Alipay and PayPal.

Large banks have long dominated the global payment industry. Now, however, technology companies are destroying their business models.

Initially, tools such as PayPal,First Data are limited to dealing with transactions between financial institutions and suppliers.

Later, Square and iZettle expanded into direct relationships between businesses and consumers, including point-of-sale and peer-to-peer transactions.

With the advent of mobile devices, Stripe and Adyen created a new infrastructure to manage multiple payment businesses across the chain, including sales outlets, online, P2P, and app-based transactions. These companies can also help businesses identify which payment methods customers are using.

Rohit Kulkarni, managing director of SharesPost, said, “We are witnessing a once-in-a-generation transformation of the financial services industry. New technologies such as blockchain and P2P networks are creating faster, cheaper and better domestic and cross-border payment methods. Emerging Technologies, changing consumer preferences and new fintech business models could disrupt the major banks and credit-card companies that have dominated payment operations for decades. There will be many new unicorns on the market.”