X-Tech industry represents the culmination of the digitization processes of various sectors and activity areas. Assuming this concept means understanding that there is not only a commitment to digitize these areas, but also a willingness to reinvent and disrupt certain fields.
The application of the latest innovations and technological advances to the operations of some industries and the appearance of new actors derived from this process, as well as the reorganization of the sector around them, lays the foundations of what we now know as X-Tech industries.
What is X-Tech
The term X-Tech is the last of the concepts born derived from this change. That is, before we started talking about X-Tech, we had to talk about at least three industries affected by these changes.
“Fintech” was the first term to be widely used and that grabbed a large part of the headlines in the media and business environments. Its coining began a path that would define the terms that would come to be used to refer to digitization, transposition to the online plane and technological reinvention of certain sectors of activity.
Thus, after the extension and consolidation of the Fintech industry, other sectors began to follow in the footsteps of banking and finance to continue a trend that would result in terms such as RegTech, InsurTech or PropTech.
If we take the term FinTech as an example, we see that it is made up of “Finance” and “Technology”. Thus, X-Tech refers to all these areas focused on digitizing, reformulating and reinventing certain sectors of activity; grouping them under the same concept.
The ecosystem
Innovative startups began to develop disruptive solutions and processes changes that gave the starting gun for the X-Tech industries. These companies brought together the best of the latest technological advances and fully integrated it into certain industries with potential in this regard.
While it could be established that a sector has developed its own industry X-Tech talking about its digital transformation process, this is not a correct view. The digital transformation has penetrated all sectors but that does not imply that an X-Tech area has been consolidated within them.
We can talk about a consolidated X-Tech when a sector of activity has undergone substantial changes that have not only optimized its processes thanks to digitization but have reinvented and restructured the industry, offering products and services that were previously inconceivable and that have completely changed the rules of the game:
RegTech
Compliance need within all sectors must be covered and considered as the central axis to develop the activity of a company in a sector.
RegTech makes use of technology to drive business growth at the same time that they automatically comply with the relevant regulatory standards in each of their processes, taking advantage of the benefits that this entails.
Understand why RegTech is transversal to all X-Tech industries and fully affects each and every one of the activity sectors.
FinTech
FinTech was the starting point for the X-Tech concept. All X-Techs collect methodologies, digital techniques and ways of understanding the disruption of innovative startups that have changed the rules of the game once and for all in the financial and banking sector.
Find out in this article how FinTech is made up and how it is transforming other sectors.
WealthTech
Closely linked to FinTech, and as a result of its extension, WealthTech was born, democratizing and extending the world of investment and savings to ordinary users and providing professionals with wealth management and investment digital disruptive tools.
It is impossible to understand trading and investment management without the WealthTech ecosystem.
Discover the future of WealthTech and how it has reshaped the investment and trading industry in this article.
InsurTech
Just as the financial and the insurance sector are constantly converging, so do FinTech and InsurTech. This focus on the needs and reinvention of the insurance industry has completely transformed an industry once anchored in the past.
Understand the relevance of InsurTech and how it has transformed the economy in this article.
GovTech
The public sector and the various local, regional, national and international administrations have drawn the future in GovTech, not only of public services but of society as a whole and of the economy.
Find out in this article how GovTech is about to change services for citizens and every industry as we know them.
PropTech
The real estate sector has been innovating since digitization began back in 2007. However, it was not until 2014 when PropTech has been consolidated by developing new methods, processes and the conception of the product that have transformed the way of understanding the housing and real estate sector, transcending the sale and purchase.
Get to know in this article the new players present in the real estate sector thanks to the introductions of PropTech.
LegalTech
Legal services have experienced a major change in the way they are delivered. The transposition to the online plane of the legal sector, the optimization of processes and the creation of new services have driven LegalTech by creating an area that has redefined the way we understand their way of working and being.
Discover LegalTech and how the future of the legal sector is shaping up in this article.
EdTech
The education and teaching sector, including non-formal education and professional and labor schools, has been experiencing its digitization process since online training (eLearning) began to be a reality.
EdTech does not only focus on offering solutions for distance education, but also works on optimizing educational processes, digitizing classrooms and innovating within the field of education.
However, it was not until the situation of social distancing that all institutions, companies and organizations in the field of training and education had been forced to offer education and procedures at a distance with security and guarantees.
Find in this article the role of EduTech today and why user identification is crucial to its operation and functioning.
The role of digital identity within X-Tech
The development and promotion of X-Tech has been marked by Digital Identity. We cannot understand these digital industries without knowing the role that Identity verification plays into its fundamental processes.
In this sense, RegTech supports the others X-Techs by providing support in terms of legitimacy and security for their operations. The first step to be able to operate in digital, online and remote environments is identity verification, legitimizing users to access all disruptive products and services created by the X-Tech industries.
Like the financial and banking sector cannot be understood without the process KYC (Know Your Customer), FinTech cannot be understood without eKYC (electronic Know Your Customer). It is a mandatory procedure and an essential requirement also for the WealthTech, LegalTech and PropTech industries.
Similarly, the digital identity processes for B2B relationships within the X-Tech framework, are framed by the KYB (Know Your Business) process.
Request a free demo of eID’s X-Tech digital identity solutions here.
KYC, AML (Anti-Money Laundering), eIDAS (electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services) and SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) standards, a fundamental framework for understanding and developing digital identity procedures, are established as the central axis for X-Tech industries to operate, develop and grow regionally and internationally.
The future of the economy is X-Tech
The 6 main X-Tech: RegTech, FinTech, InsurTech, PropTech, WealthTech and LegalTech, have been growing at a dizzying rate between 2010 and 2015. In countries such as Spain, they grew more than 67% in 2018 according to Finnovating data and they have continued to grow at even higher rates to this day.
Following areas of development
Although they have not yet established a clear and consolidated ecosystem, initiatives are beginning to appear in certain sectors that give us a glimpse of the potential creation of an X-tech industry within them.
Although we cannot talk about EnergyTech yet, there have been born companies that are breaking the rules of the game and setting a new course to follow within the electricity and energy sector, both in the distribution and in production.
The Foodtech and technological transformation of the food industry is starting to build their reality environment for R & D to revolutionize automation aspects from supermarkets and restaurants to the reinvention of agriculture.
We have been able to see how innovative startups have appeared within the tourism sector that are offering disruptive products being closely followed by the large tour operators.
We could speak of an incipient TurTech when seeing products such as those where, for a fixed price, travellers know their destination and vacation package by surprise days before the start of the journey. Similarly, innovative technology B2B services and AI and machine learning providers within the tourism sector could be seen as TurTech initiatives.
For a few years, we have seen how products, services and processes have been innovated in the automotive, transport and mobility sectors. From renting platforms, carsharing, VTC or innovative mobility providers to vehicle buying and selling platforms with disruptive products and services.
eID, committed to the development of X-Tech
At eID, we develop identity solutions and digital transformation of processes to drive the growth of the X-Tech industries as well as those non-X-Tech companies that wish to digitize and optimize their operations, grow and expand.
It is a reality that the future of all sectors and of the economy as a whole passes through the X-Tech initiatives and companies as well as the large players committed to digitization and compliance.
Since the advancement and improvement of societies is shaped by innovative initiatives and the will to grow and improve, at eID, we work every day to promote the development of companies and institutions committed to digitization and process optimization.
Contact eID through this form and request information on the role of digital identity in X-Tech industries.