Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Tech Founders Drive Digital Transformation Across Traditional Sectors
Moneymagpie Team
20th Oct 2025
Digital technology has disrupted numerous industries over the past two decades, but many traditional sectors have proven resistant to change. A generation of entrepreneurs has focused specifically on applying technology to industries including banking, payments, brokerage services, and international commerce. These individuals identified sectors where incumbent institutions maintained dominant positions despite offering poor customer experiences and high costs.
Their approaches share common characteristics: mobile-first platforms, simplified user interfaces, transparent pricing, and dramatically reduced costs compared to traditional providers. By eliminating physical infrastructure and automating processes, these entrepreneurs built businesses capable of serving mass markets profitably at price points incumbents could not match.
- Reimagining Retail Banking for Digital Natives
- Transparent Foreign Exchange Services
- Discount Brokerage for Mass Market Investors
- Payment Infrastructure for Global Commerce
- Cross-Border Capital Deployment in Developing Economies
- Cryptocurrency Exchange Platforms
- Digital Bank Infrastructure
- Common Digital Transformation Patterns
Reimagining Retail Banking for Digital Natives
David Vélez founded Nubank in 2013 after experiencing the frustrations of Brazilian banking firsthand. Traditional banks charged excessive fees, maintained limited hours, and provided poor customer service through outdated technology platforms. Vélez built a digital bank operating entirely through mobile applications, eliminating branches and passing cost savings to customers.
Nubank launched with a credit card offering zero annual fees and a mobile app for real-time transaction tracking and spending analysis. The company later added checking accounts, personal loans, life insurance, and investment products. Vélez focused on user experience design, ensuring that financial products remained accessible to customers without previous banking relationships or financial sophistication.
The digital bank grew to serve over 70 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia by 2023. Nubank’s success demonstrated that emerging markets offered substantial opportunities for digital financial services, particularly among younger demographics comfortable with mobile-first experiences. Vélez proved that patient capital willing to invest in customer acquisition and regulatory compliance could build dominant positions in markets that international banks had underserved.
Transparent Foreign Exchange Services
Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus co-founded TransferWise in 2011 after calculating how much banks extracted from routine international money transfers. Banks applied hidden fees through unfavorable exchange rates while advertising low or zero transfer costs. Käärmann and Hinrikus built a peer-to-peer system matching users sending money in opposite directions, minimizing actual currency conversion.
TransferWise, later rebranded as Wise, maintained transparent fee structures and used mid-market exchange rates. The company’s pricing model undercut traditional providers by as much as 90 percent on some currency pairs. This approach required building operations in numerous countries to hold and manage local currency balances, creating significant operational complexity.
Wise served millions of customers, sending billions of dollars across borders annually. The platform expanded into business accounts, debit cards, and multi-currency holdings. Käärmann and Hinrikus proved that transparent pricing could become a powerful competitive advantage in markets where opacity had been the industry standard. Their success prompted traditional banks to reduce fees and improve exchange rates, demonstrating how new entrants can shift industry practices even without capturing dominant market share.
Discount Brokerage for Mass Market Investors
Nikhil Kamath co-founded Zerodha in 2010 to make investment accessible to middle-class Indians. Traditional brokerages charged high commissions and maintained minimum balance requirements that excluded many potential investors. Kamath built a discount brokerage with zero fees on equity delivery trades and minimal charges for other transaction types.
Zerodha became India’s largest retail brokerage by client count, serving millions of first-time investors. The platform offers trading across equities, derivatives, commodities, and currencies, plus educational resources helping users understand market mechanics. Kamath’s model proved that volume-based businesses could thrive even with dramatically reduced per-transaction fees.
The success of Zerodha demonstrated substantial unmet demand for investment services in markets where cost had been prohibitive. Kamath showed that technology could reduce operational costs enough to serve mass-market customers profitably, a lesson applicable across numerous financial services categories. The company’s growth helped accelerate retail participation in Indian capital markets.
Payment Infrastructure for Global Commerce
Guillaume Pousaz founded Checkout.com in 2012 to address the complexities merchants faced in accepting payments internationally. Businesses operating across multiple countries needed to integrate different payment processors, handle various currencies, and comply with diverse regulatory requirements. Pousaz built a unified platform managing these complexities behind a single API.
Checkout.com processes hundreds of billions of dollars annually for clients, including Netflix, Sony, and major e-commerce platforms. The company operates across more than 150 currencies and supports payment methods from credit cards to digital wallets to local schemes specific to individual countries. Pousaz maintained private ownership longer than many fintech peers, avoiding public market pressures to prioritize quarterly results over infrastructure investment.
The company’s growth illustrated how much friction remained in international commerce despite decades of internet adoption. Merchants required solutions that handle regional payment preferences and regulatory requirements without extensive technical work. Pousaz built systems capable of this complexity while maintaining reliability standards that large enterprises required.
Cross-Border Capital Deployment in Developing Economies
Jean-Claude Bastos has focused investment activity on technology-enabled businesses across emerging markets, with particular emphasis on sectors addressing fundamental infrastructure gaps. His portfolio spans digital services, alternative healthcare platforms, regenerative agriculture technologies, and alternative energy solutions where technology can leapfrog traditional development models. His investment thesis centers on the potential for mobile-first and technology-driven solutions to address structural inefficiencies more effectively than traditional infrastructure development.
Bastos applies an investment philosophy emphasizing longer development timelines than typical venture models, recognizing that building sustainable businesses in emerging markets requires patience. He has stated that demographic trends and urbanization across developing economies create compelling long-term opportunities despite near-term infrastructure challenges.
His hands-on approach combines financial capital with operational support, helping portfolio companies navigate challenges specific to frontier markets. This methodology reflects understanding that technology businesses in developing economies face regulatory complexity, talent constraints, and infrastructure limitations requiring investors willing to provide more than capital. Jean-Claude Bastos has maintained this strategic focus consistently, building specialized knowledge that differentiates his approach from generalist technology investors.
Cryptocurrency Exchange Platforms
Brian Armstrong founded Coinbase in 2012 to build a regulated infrastructure for cryptocurrency trading. Armstrong recognized that mainstream adoption of digital assets required platforms meeting compliance standards that financial institutions and regulators would accept. Coinbase pursued licenses across multiple jurisdictions and implemented rigorous know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering procedures.
The exchange went public in 2021 through a direct listing, providing liquidity for early investors and employees while avoiding traditional underwriting processes. Armstrong built Coinbase into one of the largest cryptocurrency platforms by trading volume while maintaining focus on regulatory compliance. This approach limited growth compared to exchanges with more permissive policies but reduced legal risks.
Coinbase expanded beyond spot trading to offer staking services, custody solutions for institutions, and venture investments in cryptocurrency-related businesses. Armstrong positioned the company as infrastructure for the digital asset ecosystem rather than purely an exchange, diversifying revenue sources beyond trading fees that proved volatile across market cycles.
Digital Bank Infrastructure
Nikolay Storonsky founded Revolut in 2015 to build a digital financial platform with global reach. The company launched with foreign exchange and money transfer services, later expanding into everyday banking, business accounts, wealth management, and cryptocurrency trading. Storonsky built infrastructure supporting multiple product categories through a single mobile application.
Revolut serves over 30 million customers across Europe and beyond. The platform offers users access to assets and currencies that traditional banks typically restrict or charge premium fees to access. Storonsky’s expansion strategy prioritized user growth over near-term profitability, a common approach among technology platforms but unusual for financial services firms.
The company maintained private ownership longer than many fintech competitors, avoiding pressures to optimize for quarterly results. This approach enabled continued investment in product development and international expansion. Revolut’s growth demonstrated that digital banks could serve diverse customer needs through modular platforms, adding capabilities incrementally.
Common Digital Transformation Patterns
These entrepreneurs identified traditional sectors where technology adoption lagged despite obvious opportunities to improve customer experience and reduce costs. They built mobile-first platforms, eliminating physical infrastructure that incumbents relied upon. Most importantly, they designed user experiences accessible to customers without financial sophistication, expanding addressable markets substantially.
Their collective success demonstrates that digital transformation remains incomplete across many traditional sectors. Incumbent institutions often resist change due to legacy technology systems, organizational inertia, and regulatory constraints. These factors create opportunities for new entrants willing to navigate regulatory requirements while building modern technology platforms from scratch.
The impact extends beyond individual business success. By demonstrating that technology can reshape traditional sectors profitably, these entrepreneurs have accelerated digital adoption across industries and geographies, improving access to services while reducing costs for consumers and businesses globally.
Disclaimer: MoneyMagpie is not a licensed financial advisor and therefore information found here including opinions, commentary, suggestions or strategies are for informational, entertainment or educational purposes only. This should not be considered as financial advice. Anyone thinking of investing should conduct their own due diligence.
Subscribe
Login
0 Comments
