We live in a time where technology has an influence on every aspect of our daily life. For one second, try to imagine a world without any technology. It’s almost impossible to do that.
Technology changed the way how we approach things, how we do things, how we interact with other humans, how things are developed, and so on. While at the same time, companies aim for higher productivity, efficiency, cost-saving, simply by using the available technology.
In addition, it changed the way how we handle our personal finance for the better. Technology has massively affected how we do our banking, financial security, how we pay and get paid, and more.
In this article, I’ll discuss how our technology has changed every person’s finance for the better. Check out my top-5 below.
5 Ways Technology Has Changed Personal Finance For the Better
1. How We Pay and Get Paid
In the past, people were paid in cash or with a handwritten check, but nowadays people from paid by an online bank transfer. Our current financial technology opened up so many different ways how to get paid, but also how we make our payments. Think about online bank transfers, PayPal, credit cards, debit cards, Transferwise, and the list goes on.
In addition, there are so many different apps to send and receive money with, pay friends, share bills, pay a taxi, etc.
Online security is also a hot topic in 2018, so this understandable you don’t want to enter your credit card details on every platform. However, it’s incredibly simple to get a second card, which you can strictly use for online payments for extra security, you can even set a spending limit.
The way you get paid and how you pay people has been changed by technology in every way you can think of. Everything can be done online and on a mobile phone. There’s only one question we can ask ourselves now: what’s next?
2. Digital Shopping
Our technology has pushed the trend of digital shopping. Of course, brick-and-mortar stores still exist, I believe they’ll always exist, but online e-commerce websites have rapidly grown over the past decade. e-Commerce stores have drastically changed the way we buy clothes, order supplies, buy and send gifts, etc.
Although people tend to spend more time in a shopping mall or retail store compared to the time spend on an e-commerce website, the level of growth in online purchases is structurally higher.
The simplicity to pay while shopping online is an important factor in the growth, because webshops, especially the large ones, have adopted a ton of different payment options.
Platforms like Amazon, AliExpress, and eBay are a few examples of such huge world-wide shopping platforms.
3. Online Banking
Online banking provides the possibility to deposit, withdrawal, and transfer funds by simply using your mobile phone or laptop. The application of your bank is connecting you to your account and enables you to make transactions at any time, anywhere.
Online banking has drastically changed the way how we handle our funds. You basically don’t need any money bills in your wallet anymore. The online banking technology is well-developed and extremely user-friendly, so it’s useful across for generations – young and old.
It improved our personal finance greatly, because online banking allows you to check your bank statement and funds at any given time.
Forgot to pay a friend or your monthly rental bill? Simply handle the payment while you’re waiting for a coffee at Starbucks. You can even set monthly fixed payments. All in all, online banking provides us with an efficient and effective way to handle our personal finances.
4. Mobile & Personal Finance
While smartphones are increasingly more advanced with facial scanners, fingerprint scanners, smartphones also allow you to basically perform any kind of online transaction, regardless of your location – all you need is an internet connection!
Smartphones allow you to pay bills, order and pay food, invest in stock markets, buy Bitcoins, send money requests, and so forth.
Furthermore, there are plenty of apps on the market to handle your personal finances, record your daily, weekly and monthly spending, or help you save money.
5. Borderless Payments
In the past, when people planned a vacation to another country, you had to go to your bank and exchange money for the currency used in your holiday destination, prior to departure.
So, once you arrived, you would often have quite some cash with you that would be sufficient to pay for your expenses.
In today’s world, people don’t even think about that anymore, because it’s of no concern at all. For most of us, technology allows us to withdraw money from anywhere, in any currency. In most countries, it’s possible to pay with a credit card that’s accepted worldwide.
Payments have practically become borderless, which has an immense effect on personal finance and how we handle our money while being abroad.
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