The Iranian Association of Islamic finance (IAIF) held an international webinar on the Role of Fintech in Takaful on 6 Feb. 2023 .

Dr. Faleel Jamaldeen
Executive Director and Asst. Prof.,Geneva School of Business and Economics, 

The speaker focused on the importance of fintech industry, saying the financial technology, or fintech, industry, refers to the group of companies that are introducing innovation into financial services through the use of modern technologies.
Some fintech firms compete directly with banks, whilst others have partnered with them or supply them with good or services.
Areas of fintech:
• New Banking Models
• Payments and remittance
• Digital lending
• Transformation of Commercial Banking
• Next Generation Commerce
• Crowd Funding and Crowd Investing
• Big Data
• Internet of Things
• Block Chain and Distributed Ledgers
• Insurtech
• Regtech
Short History of Fintech:
It is hard to pinpoint when financial technology began, but the 1950s are a good reference point. Technology is a key component of the financial services sector in various ways. The 1950s saw the introduction of credit cards. Instead of carrying cash, people used these cards to pay for their purchases.

ATMs were introduced in the 1960s, meaning that people no longer had to visit bank branches for certain transactions.
Why is Fintech Important?
Money makes the world go round, and financial services regulate how fast it spins. Disruption caused by fintech drives the financial industry to be smarter and more agile and allows it to deal with important problems in the world. For example, automated investing paves the way for all social classes to invest and see returns on their money.
It also allows people in developing countries to transact, even if they don’t have a bank account. Yet, the fintech industry has a lot of room for growth and improvement, and financial infrastructures should be revised for the benefit of consumers.
Why has Fintech Become Popular Now?
1. Fintech promises healthy returns on investments and growth opportunities, even though the business models are not yet fully understood. For example, nobody knows whether peer-to-peer financing is a model that can be sustained in the long term.
2. New technologies have been emerging in several industries that can also be applied to financial services. These include blockchain technology, advanced machine learning software, micro-sized card readers and chips, and powerful servers capable of performing intelligent analytics.
What is Insurtech?
Insurtech is the term given to companies who are using technology to innovate and disrupt the insurance industry. As you might have guessed, it’s the meeting point of ‘insurance’ and ‘technology’.
It’s been popularized by new, disruptive companies and products that capitalize on the inefficiencies of older, established providers. Today, there are startup incubators dedicated to just insurtech, and larger companies are collaborating with startups to update their offerings.
From mobile apps to big data and AI, the leading insurtech companies use a range of innovative tools to shake up the insurance industry.

How does insurtech work?
The technology that insurtech startups use can really vary. But they all have one goal—to rival big, established companies and grow their market share by solving problems for customers.
Compared to other industries and products, the slow, cumbersome processes of the traditional insurance models leave many customers dissatisfied. Today, people want to be able to buy their travel insurance with a tap of the finger, not work through stacks of forms. Insurtech startups recognize this and want to do something about it.
Traditional insurance models work by sorting customers into groups by their risk category.
These groups are pretty broad, which means that some people in the group will end up paying more for their policy than they should. By contrast, insurtech startups are trying to use real data, instead of statistical models, to create smaller, tailored risk categories. This makes it easier for them to offer a more competitive pricing strategy.

Why is insurtech important?
Even though the insurance industry is a tightly regulated, complex business with many legal obligations—exciting changes are starting to happen.
First, there’s the potential to make pricing more competitive. Other people’s risk categories shouldn’t impact the amount you pay for insurance. Insurtech makes it possible for your insurance to be tailored to your own health, finances, lifestyle, and personal priorities.
There’s also the potential to process and settle claims more quickly, improve the industry’s infrastructure, and introduce scenario-based policies.
It is expected the global insurtech market to reach $33.73 billion from 2021 to 2025.
At the end Dr. Jamaldeen dealt with Microinsurance, mentioning it is about hand picking features that offer the right level of protection to a customer for the shortest amount of time. Several firms will start offering this type of cover.
On August 4, 2016, Ageas launched Back Me Up, an app-based insurance coverage that authorises individuals to personalise their policies by specifying items that they wish to include in their cover.
Back Me Up is specifically for Millennials, who are looking for better insurance products and services. There are no annual contract charges and penalty fees, and users can even upload photos of items they want their insurance to cover. For £15 a month, an individual can protect three items from malicious and unforeseen destruction, and loss and theft. They can claim up to £3,000 per month.