Finance has used technology “since the days of the abacus”, as Philipp Buschmann, the chief executive of smart-banking platform AAZZUR, puts it. However, up until a few years ago most financial firms and institutions remained relatively insulated from the digital revolution that had disrupted many other sectors of the economy. Even the rise of online banking had failed to challenge the dominant retail banks in the UK, while basic financial tasks such as processing payments or making cross border transactions still relied on the infrastructure created decades ago.

That’s changing – and changing fast. Customers are now much more comfortable carrying out a wide range of tasks through new channels such as apps. They are increasingly looking for the kind of convenience in financial services that they are getting elsewhere in the modern economy. The result is a fast-spreading financial technology (fintech) revolution.

Payments technology is an example where the industry is changing very rapidly, says Nina Moffatt from the fintech and payments team at law firm Paul Hastings. Until recently, companies selling goods and services over the internet had a very limited choice of providers when it came to processing payments and moving the money to their bank. However,