For fintech, there needs to be an evolution back to basics. Because only by getting back to basics can fintech be sustainable. If we must find a model of such an evolution, the exploration and practice of fintech that we see today is a direct reflection of such a state. Needless to say, the leading giants represented by Ali, Tencent and JD.com, even those small and medium-sized fintech players, also focus on the essence of fintech.

What is the essence of fintech?

The author believes that the essence of fintech is to find a way and method to deeply integrate finance with the development of the current real economy, rather than just regard fintech as the cloak of traditional finance. In other words, the development of fintech is on the right track only when finance is truly returned to the enabling entity and the supporting entity.

It needs to be made clear that the development mode of fintech returning to entity and supporting entity is different from that of the traditional sense. Or rather, the opposite.

In such a process, if we just copy the traditional sense of financial return to the entity and support the function and role of the entity, the development of fintech will inevitably lead to a new dead end. Only by finding the right way and method to support the return entity of fintech that matches the current one, can we really bring the development of fintech to a new stage of development. Otherwise, the development of fintech is still in the same place. What’s more, it will miss out on a great new opportunity for growth.

Finance is no longer on the sidelines, but in

No matter in the traditional era or in the Internet era, the financial return to the entity and the support of the development of the entity are usually achieved by means of external empowerment of financial players. For financial players, they either provide financial support to the real economy, or help the real economy from the perspective of a third party, but never really participate in the actual operation of the real economy. In the context of the real economy itself not changing much, this approach to player empowerment works.

When the real economy itself begins to change, if it is still empowered by traditional financial empowerment, it will not achieve immediate results. In order to realize the depth of financial empowerment for the real economy, we must adopt new ways and methods to meet the new needs of the development of the real economy, in order to achieve immediate results. So what we’re seeing is more and more fintech players looking for new ways to deeply empower the real economy.

In particular, fintech players represented by Ali, Tencent and JD.com have begun to look for the right way and method to empower entities by virtue of their increasingly close connection with the real economy accumulated in the Internet era. In general, these fintech players are no longer sitting on the sidelines, but actively becoming part of the real economy.

One of the most important reasons why they have such a transformation is that, after the baptism of the Internet era, these Internet players are no longer virtual economy players in a simple sense, but become the representatives of the new real economy, and even some Internet players themselves have many elements and connotations of the real economy.

It is for this reason that fintech players are no longer just an outside presence, as they were in the traditional era and the Internet era, but a presence in it. Their support for the real economy, no longer just a superficial, no longer is the dragonfly, but the whole link, the whole process. It is predictable that when fintech players start to support and empower the development of the real economy in such a new way, it will inevitably bring the empowerment of finance to the real economy to a new stage of development.

Technology is no longer a harvesting tool, but a bridge

Looking back at the past development of fintech, in fact, the role of technology is to harvest traffic tools. This was almost always the case, both in the era of Internet finance and in the first half of fintech. However, in the era of Internet finance, the target is C-end users, while in the first half of fintech, the target is B-end users. If technology is only defined as a tool, especially a tool for harvesting traffic, then its function and role cannot be maximized.

When the development of fintech enters a new stage, especially when fintech begins to explore new ways and methods of development, what we see is that the functions and attributes of science and technology begin to transform from a tool to harvest traffic to a bridge and link between finance and entities. With the help of the bridge of science and technology, finance and the real economy are no longer unrelated or independent, but connected and coordinated.

For fintech players, what they need to do is to deeply connect finance and the real economy through the means of technology, so as to promote the synergistic development between the two.

When fintech players begin to define technology in terms of such functions and roles, they no longer blindly acquire traffic, harvest traffic, or expand the boundary, but start to find more correct ways and methods to combine finance and real economy under the scope of science and technology. When there is a new possibility of combination between finance and real economy under the connection of science and technology, the development between them will inevitably enter a new stage of development.

It is foreseeable that when the new functions and attributes of science and technology begin to be enlarged, we will see more attempts to find a new way of combining finance and real economy with science and technology as a breakthrough in the future, and the way of combining finance and real economy will also undergo profound changes. Starting from this, the development of fintech can truly break out of the past development cycle and enter a completely new stage of development.

Fintech is no longer traditional. It’s trendy

In the context of a profound and thorough change in both financial and technological elements, the function and attribute of fintech itself are also undergoing a profound and thorough change. Under such a change, fintech players no longer take traffic as the ultimate pursuit, no longer take platform and center as the main performance, but begin to define themselves in a new concept, but begin to find their own development ways and methods in a new model.

In the past, the so-called fintech, in the final analysis, is still traditional, Internet-style, traffic as the ultimate pursuit. The so-called fintech players, in fact, are the traffic and platform model play to the extreme players. This is the fundamental reason why we see so many fintech players unable to break out of the Internet style development cycle. So instead of calling the fintech players of the past fintech players, we should call them “Internet finance No. 2.”

In the past, the model of the so-called fintech is still a platform model dominated by gathering traffic and harvesting traffic. However, in the era of fintech, players mainly harvest financial institutions such as banks, insurance and securities. Although the object of harvest has changed in the first half of the financial technology, these objects of harvest cannot support the financial technology players to achieve substantial development, and cannot allow the financial technology players to replicate the glory of the previous Internet model. So, what we see is that when fintech players break their heads and enter the crowded alley of fintech, they suddenly find that their development model is not workable, is dead.

So what we’re seeing is fintech players stop being traditional and become trendy. In such a trendy mode, players no longer blindly pursue the breadth of traffic, but began to pursue how to carry out a deep integration with limited traffic, in such a deep integration to find new development dividends.

At the same time, we are seeing new business models based on such a brand new fintech. For fintech players, they are no longer eager to seek limited development dividends through platformization, but begin to seek more new and unlimited development dividends through the deep, comprehensive and diversified integration with the real economy. If we view the previous business model as a single, unsustainable business model, then the current business model is more of a diversified, sustainable business model, and such a business model will continue to release more new development dividends as fintech players and the real economy are deeply integrated.

conclusion

Fintech is starting a real return to the essence and primitive meanings of evolution.

Beneath this new evolution, we are seeing a deep and comprehensive change in finance, technology, and fintech itself. It can be said that such fintech is the true meaning of fintech. Starting from this, the development of fintech can really get on the right track, and more metamorphosis can occur.