Following the 2008 financial crisis, banks lost innovation momentum, creating space for fintech startups to disrupt the industry -- peer-to-peer lending platforms like Prosper Marketplace and LendingClub fundamentally changed how people access capital.
LendingClub raised almost $900 million in the largest U.S. tech IPO of 2014, valuing the company at $8.5 billion, while vertical lenders like Kabbage and OnDeck applied big data analytics and alternative data sources to small business underwriting.
Blockchain and distributed ledger technology are presented as the next frontier, potentially eliminating double-spend problems in financial transactions and enhancing fraud prevention as the pace of fintech change continues to accelerate.
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