Emerging Industry Trends
My business is in the financial services industry. My company headquartered in New York, The US provides travel-related services and card products. The relevant industry associations include;
American Financial Services Association
Consumer Bankers Association
Federal Reserve
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
National Association of Insurance And Financial Advisors
The emerging trends in my industry include US Corporate Tax Cuts, The US, Fintech Initiatives, Impact of Brexit, Payment Channels growing market, Technological Rapid Changes, and Risk of Online Identity Theft and Hacking. Of the six trends, three are opportunities and three threats.
Opportunities
Payment Channels growing market
An increase in the contactless terminals’ number, growth in e-commerce, mobile payment increase, and migration to Visa, MasterCard, and Europay standards could be the reason for the growing market of payment channels. (Turban, Outland, et al. 2018). The number of circulating cards in the US is estimated to reach $23.6 million charge cards, $708.4 million credit cards, and $912.2 million debit cards with the total projected growth of $1,653.1 million by 2022. The channel’s transaction value is forecast to grow to $9.172.8 billion in2022. This implies my business will have growth opportunities in new markets.
US Corporate Tax Cuts
The December 2017 corporate tax cut bill would benefit many corporations and particularly financial service firms (Auerbach, 2018). The US federal corporate income tax was reduced from 35% to 21%. This trend would mean the company would benefit from mergers and acquisitions as the bill includes overseas cash repatriation provisions. This would increase the company’s profit margins.
Fintech Initiatives
FinTech offers ways to improve financial services through financial technology. The company covers new techniques and tech in both hardware/software and conceptual industry aspects. The company can benefit my business through software solutions like Pocket Concierge, a restaurant reservation platform. Softwares like Mezi, for instance, can enable my business to offer customers personalized online travel booking experience and discovery by the use of artificial intelligence (Nair, Menon, 2017).
Threats
Impact of Brexit
The UK’s Brexit from the European Union could adversely affect the company’s UK operations. This is particularly true as the business and the consumer will be harmed by political and economic uncertainties caused by terms and conditions uncertainty. The Brexit may mean the company will incur additional costs and expenses in adopting a different regulatory framework from the rest of the union.
Rapid Changes in Technology
The cards and payment processing industry are subjected to rapid technological changes since it is a highly competitive market (Lindman, Tuunainen, et al. 2017). The company has to adapt to changing product and service technological innovation requirements. This industry trend threatens the company’s products and services to be obsolete if it does not adopt new industry standards and incorporate new technological products and services.
Risk of Hacking and Online Identity Theft.
Hacking and online identity theft are 21st-century nuisances that ail the technological world. Although the company has secured and highly encrypted payment processing and other security measures, the company is still vulnerable. The phone and card payment transactions and online technologies are vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks, unauthorized attacks, and identity theft (Locke, 2017). Although quality software and hardware minimize the risk of these attacks, they may not protect the company from unauthorized attacks, thus exposing certain client information.
References
Auerbach, A. J. (2018). Measuring the effects of corporate tax cuts. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 32(4), 97-120.
Locke, C. (2017). Why financial services should accelerate biometrics adoption. Biometric Technology Today, 2017(1), 7-9
Lindman, J., Tuunainen, V. K., & Rossi, M. (2017). Opportunities and risks of Blockchain Technologies–a research agenda.
Nair, V. M., & Menon, D. G. (2017). Fin Tech firms-A new challenge to Traditional Banks: A Review. International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research, 15, 173-184.
Turban, E., Outland, J., King, D., Lee, J. K., Liang, T. P., & Turban, D. C. (2018). Electronic commerce payment systems. In Electronic Commerce 2018 (pp. 457-499). Springer, Cham.