There’s a lot that can be said about the benefits of embracing digital and technology. But while other industries such as retail, travel and telecoms seem to be doing just that - the financial services industry is still way behind the curve and has a lot of catching up to do.

The good news is that we’re starting to see a few green shoots of innovation beginning to emerge across this sector…finally. I believe that 2015 is going to be a very exciting year for financial services. So what can we expect to see?

A financial connection with the Internet of Things

The ‘Internet of Things’ has been talked about for a while now but we’re seeing the technology develop at a fast pace. That won’t slow down as we’ll start to see the digital world becoming more and more connected throughout 2015. This will finally begin to permeate into the finance sector and enable customers to interact with financial services brands in a more fluid way.

‘Cloud’ technology in financial services will open up a secure, more connected experience for the customer. For example this may mean that if you’re researching a fund or at the beginning of an investment transaction, you should be able to seamlessly continue this process on another device, rather than having to start all over again.

Investing in better use of big data

Big data – yep, that old buzzword has been around for a few years and won’t be going away either! The real question we think will crop up next year will be “what do I do with this data?” It’s all well and good telling people they walked an average of 6,000 steps a day…but then what?!”.

Better use of big data will have significant implications for direct to consumer investment platforms. Platforms will use the investor’s profile to help them discover new investment ideas and hopefully make better decisions ‘People like you invest in these types of funds’.

Platforms will be able to proactively signpost alternative funds for investors to consider – ‘your fund is ranked 82/100 in its sector, do you want to view the top 5 best performing funds in this sector?’

Hail the Bitcoin fund revolution

Companies are increasingly doing business in Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. As it becomes more widely used and accepted by online retailers, and with the increasing prospect of regulation as the FCA watches over, Bitcoin could go mainstream.

In the fiercely competitive world of investment funds, the first fund group to jump on the bitcoin bandwagon is really going to stand out from the crowd. 2015 might be the year where we see the first technology fund with a bitcoin share class.

What do you think? How will financial services organisations fair in 2015?