A Review on Blockchain Applications in Fintech Ecosystem

Abstract

The term fintech started to become popular from the 90s. With the rapid development of technology and the widespread use of the internet, Fintech has become a sector in itself, especially since 2004. Within the framework of Fintech, there have been a number of advances in ATM, credit cards, debit cards, mobile transactions, internet banking and digital banking infrastructure and transactions. The emergence of Bitcoin in 2008 caused us to hear the term blockchain frequently, and the path of blockchain technology intersected with fintech. The decentralization of the blockchain, thanks to its distributed ledger structure, made it possible to make Bitcoin transfers without intermediaries. After Bitcoin, the emergence of crypto assets like Ethereum opened the way for these transactions to be programmable as an infrastructure. Programmable blockchain infrastructures have started to be used not only in financial transactions, but also in sectors such as health, supply chain, education and insurance. There are different academic studies on applications related to these sectors. However, there is no such a review that includes them all together for finance. In this study, blockchain applications in the fintech ecosystem were investigated and included in a single study. In particular, it was explained in which business it was used and in which business there was a market volume. In addition, possible future blockchain applications were also mentioned. © 2022 IEEE.