Fintech

This report is published every five years – and it is (still) dismaying.  The new report, Caregiving in the US 2025, was published this week. The previous report was surveyed in 2020. The bottom line of it is the sheer number of adults (63 million) who provide care to an adult family member or child with a medical condition or disability in the past 12 months. Most of this care is unpaid.  Some are leveraging state or national programs to pay family caregivers, and one-third, likely higher income, hire outside help. The report’s focus is on the 59 million who provide care for an adult. So what has changed in terms of tech use? If usage penetration is a metric, there is some progress. For example:

Innovation is booming in categories to help older adults.   Perhaps it’s not surprising that innovation focused on older adults is ramping up – mitigating issues of social isolation, wander risk and safety, engagement, caregiving, financial management and many other categories. Not only was last year a bad year for older adult life expectancy at 65, the older adult (65+) population is still growing and a sizable number, particularly women, will live an average of nearly 20 additional years.

FinTech – are these tools for seniors?  Some trendy terminology transformations in recent years, for example Voice First and IoT, refer to tech that is relatively new or recently revived.  FinTech, a concatenation of Financial Technology, may be similar.  The category has been generally described as software "designed to be a threat to, challenge, and eventually usurp entrenched traditional financial services providers with the purpose of being more nimble and serving an underserved segment, or providing faster, better service." The next quote sounds a bit ageist, if likely true: "As for consumers, as with most technology, the younger you are the more likely it will be that you are aware of and can accurately describe what FinTech is." Looking at a list of ‘top’ FinTech companies, one might laugh at a company called Robinhood. Don't laugh, though. Charmingly named, Robinhood, which offers free stock trades, is worth $5.6 billion and has more accounts today than eTrade.