Spotting the Butterfly effect in Fintech

Most of you are familiar with the Butterfly effect, the phenomenon describing how a tiny event or change today can have much larger consequences tomorrow. In most cases, the Butterfly effect is hard to spot while it is unfolding, since at the time of the initial event, nobody pays attention. However, when it comes to upcoming technology, one might be able to catch the Butterfly effect in its early stages. FinTech, or more specifically, the rise of mobile money apps, looks to be one of these occasions.

To illustrate what I mean, I will compare the rise of two rapidly growing peer-to-peer (p2p) payment apps, one in the U.S., and one in Sweden.

Let’s start with the U.S.. There, the p2p money app Venmo is getting increasingly popular with teens and older people for splitting payments, paying small debts and conducting commerce transactions. Continue Reading