Technology Innovation and Financial Services

Abstract

The financial services industry plays a critical role in the global economy, both as an employer of people and an enabler of capital and transactions for consumers and businesses. The financial services industry is the infrastructure that allows all other businesses and governments to operate.

The financial services industry today is largely shaped by the technology that has enabled it both provide a dazzling array of new products and the very mass of the industry. Large banks with national branches could not exist without technology innovations in computers and data communications. The ability to manage accounts on a phone could not exist without innovations in miniaturization of circuits, cell phones, and other technology.

Atlanta plays an important role in one important aspect of financial services – the payments space. It has been reported that two-thirds of the world’s credit card payments are processed by companies headquartered in or near Atlanta – First Data, TSYS, Global Payments, Elevon, and a host of others are located here, as a result of both luck and policy decisions made by the state more than 30 years ago.