In a year defined by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, you might think that all this incredible innovation has made its way into the hands of the people who need it most. But you’d be wrong.
Much of the world’s population lacks access to the financial services they need, despite having trillions of dollars in economic power. Being excluded from the legacy financial services industry means having to navigate their daily lives without access to savings, credit, bill payment tools or the ability to affordably transfer money.
Some refer to this group as “the missing middle,” but at Tala, we call them the global majority. We’ve spent the last 10 years serving over 10 million people from this often-overlooked global population and have seen their struggles firsthand.
And while this new wave of technology hasn’t yet hit the mainstream, I’m more optimistic than ever that 2025 will change that. Here are three ways I predict the new year will change, thanks to fintech.
1. Credit reimagined
Most Americans don’t think twice about using their credit card to buy groceries. But what if you didn’t—or couldn’t—have access to one? That’s an unfortunate reality for billions of people around the world because traditional institutions still rely on a system created nearly a half-century ago to determine creditworthiness.
While we’ve seen some progress in emerging markets—from buy-now-pay-later services to pay-as-you-go features in superapps—we still have a long road ahead. The entire system needs to be reimagined, and it needs to happen soon.
Something as simple as offering unsecured credit products, for example, can simultaneously increase credit access and help develop new underwriting models designed for the 21st century.
And I believe that next year we will see this evolution begin as companies leverage modern, real-time, and forward-looking data to determine someone’s creditworthiness.
2. The LLM leapfrog effect
It’s no secret that artificial intelligence has taken fintech—and the world—by storm. But I think many are missing the big picture, especially when it comes to the power of large language models (LLMs).
LLMs have access to an incredible breadth of public knowledge but lack important context and non-public data to solve specific problems. The global majority is one example of a segment that isn’t well represented in public data. The real opportunity exists in combining the power of existing LLMs with a company’s expertise, custom tools, and private data to supercharge their products and services.
And as we look ahead to next year, I believe we’ll see more companies integrating LLMs into their tech stacks to improve their existing workflows and discover new and innovative ways to serve their customers.
3.The year of the stablecoin
Unlike crypto tokens, stablecoins are pegged 1:1 to a specific currency like the U.S. dollar while still operating on blockchain rails. One U.S. dollar stablecoin, for example, aims to always be worth exactly one U.S. dollar. And while that might not sound like a revolutionary concept on the surface, the implications are massive.
This technology enables near-instant transactions to occur 24/7, 365 days a year without geographic restrictions, and at a fraction of the cost of traditional financial institutions. This eliminates the need for intermediaries like banks that charge high fees, take days to process a single transaction, and are only open during specific time windows during the week––a price the global majority can’t afford in time or money.
We’ve already seen strong momentum in the global adoption of stablecoins and I believe next year will mark a huge step forward in mainstream use of this technology, particularly in historically underserved markets.
2025 and beyond
The road ahead won’t be easy, but this work is incredibly important. There are trillions of dollars’ worth of economic power just sitting on the sidelines and I believe 2025 will be the year we unleash it.
Shivani Siroya is founder and CEO of Tala.
