We are now entering into the third wave of fintech, Jeff Gido, global head of the Financial Technology sector in Goldman Sachs’ Investment Banking, said in a recently emailed note. “If the first wave was characterized by startups attempting to disrupt traditional financial services, and the second wave was when incumbents began to fight back using their brands and infrastructure, I would say that we’ve moved even deeper into the third wave — where established players and startups are joining forces. We’re seeing large, traditional financial institutions increasingly collaborate with startups. Activity is particularly strong in the business-to-business payments space,” Gido says.

He believes investors are most excited about corporate payments sector, as it is estimated that 50% of the payment transactions between businesses are still made with cash or checks. One field the Egyptian government could look at is coming from a wave of new fintech companies in Latin America, “where governments are looking to increase digital payments as a way to increase transparency and track digital payments which would, in turn, make it easier to collect taxes on commerce. Electronic payments in these countries are relatively high and fast growing as these countries typically lack the legacy infrastructure that US consumers have grown up, and where people’s first experience with financial institutions is through their mobile phones… Overseas, companies are creating ecosystems where financial services are largely delivered digitally.”