5 Technological The direction currently being taken to address the challenges and opportunities for innovation driven financial ecosystems is respondent to the data economy: how data is generated, made available, structured, protected, conveyed, analyzed, visualized and, finally, how the by FinTechs is focused. data is converted into operable resources, and used to build better products for the In the short term, a more customer’s benefit. intelligent and safer use Growth of technological companies leading the data economy has caused many to of data is generated by state that “data is the new oil”, and some leaders of the financial industry have de- clared that the banks will convert into software companies. financial activity. In the long term, there is We have to take a close look at how the alliance between financial institutions and FinTechs allow the large data deposits managed by the former to combine with the potential in the application technological instruments developed by the latter. These include predictive algorithms, of blockchain. customized recommendation engines, tokenization and distributed ledgers, and how such combinations promise to accelerate further the dynamics of the financial ecosystem, making an impact and transforming the world we inhabit. A TWO-WAY PATH 9