Financial technology’s newest iteration is FinTech. It touches on many areas of banking and financial services. But what is it?

FinTech is a shortened name for financial technology, and is a large and growing part of the 21st century’s new financial services market. Used as a catchall name encompassing small start-ups and companies that provide financial technology infrastructure, a company can be a FinTech startup if it is bringing a financial technology solution to the market. Alternatively, a company can offer these types of products, but not be a FinTech company, such as Apple, which is a technology and media company that developed and now markets the solution, ApplePay.

Some of FinTech’s most innovative applications are beyond the reach of typical, everyday consumer banking and financial services products. Instead of focusing on those innovations, this guide will focus on how FinTech’s innovations have changed consumer and small business interactions with money and debt. This guide covers banking where FinTech’s products include mobile banking and marketplace lending, mobile financial services and micro-investing services and crowdfunding, and the mainstreaming of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology both of which have been around for about ten years.

Each section of the guide will start with a brief overview and then include links to white papers, reports, and books that provide greater detail and depth on each topic. The other sections covering advisory management consulting firms, associations, regulatory agencies, databases, and subject headings will allow for further research and provide starting points for other materials to keep current.