Japanese conglomerate Hitachi is the latest firm to enter the fintech space, announcing that it will establish a Financial Innovation Laboratory in Silicon Valley.
The new operations are expected to commence from April 2016. The new organization will work on areas such as research and development of blockchain technology, a core technology of fintech, and on collaborative creation with financial institutions.
With the proliferation of smart mobile devices and the rapid development of technologies fintech is now attracting serious attention and substantial funding internationally as it taps into new trends in society. Diversified global firms such as Hitachi entering the field raises the ante another notch and will no doubt flush out other non financial multi-national firms who see fintech as the challenger to conventional banking.
Track Record
Hitachi established the Center for Social Innovation (CSI-NA) in April 2015 to pursue collaborative creation with strategic partners in the Americas, and established a new dedicated research facility in Silicon Valley in January 2016, gathering researchers specializing in big data analytics, information and communication systems, and user experience design to accelerate collaborative creation with customers.
In the area of Fintech, Hitachi has been accelerating its various initiatives such as the launch of the «Hitachi Mobile Cash Card Service» in December 2015 in Japan which enables smartphones to be used like cash cards for financial transactions. Hitachi also joined the «Hyperledger Project,» an open source project established by the Linux Foundation as a board member in February 2016.
