今天以消費者為中心的“金融科技”或者說金融科技的繁榮，主要起源于2008年的全球經濟崩潰。

在《財富》雜志主要報道金融和科技的交叉領域的專欄節目《Balancing The Ledger》上，金融科技初創公司Tally的首席執行官及聯合創始人杰森·布朗表示，2008年的災難發生以來金融業經歷了三個獨立的階段。

第一波滿足了金融危機后的需求：信貸驅動的另類貸款機構。Prosper和LendingClub等網貸和P2P平臺蓬勃發展。隨著希望重新學習技能的失業工人增多，也支持了Social Finance（簡稱SoFi）等學生貸款公司。

2007年蘋果推出iPhone之后，新一波浪潮席卷了大量的移動設備。觸達消費者變成行業新秀的首要目標。應用程序吸引了大量年輕一代，這代人習慣在手機屏幕上點點戳戳，而不是去銀行網店辦業務。

該模式仍然在如火如荼地進行。行業里最出名的包括免費信用評分提供商：Credit Karma，還有僅提供互聯網服務的“新銀行”，如Chime、Monzo和N26，還有Robinhood之類網絡炒股工具。“這些都是簡單易用的移動工具，打開工具欄就能夠理財。”布朗說。

隨著第二波浪潮接近高潮，第三次浪潮也開始興起：自動化。“以后將變成智能服務的世界，真正能夠做到為你思考和工作。”布朗說。“用戶不必再花時間想我應該怎么做？智能服務已經根據設定目標制定好方案。”

當然了，布朗是在自我宣傳。他的公司Tally可以幫助人們自動償還信用卡債務，降低利率，也能夠避免出現滯納金。該公司還提供儲蓄產品，可以自動積攢資金但不支付利息。

Tally的儲蓄方法跟許多同行很不一樣。業內一些競爭對手，例如高盛的Marcus、數字銀行Ally，還有Betterment和Wealthfront之類的所謂機器人顧問，爭相提供盡可能高收益的儲蓄賬戶，通常約為2%。但布朗對這場比賽不感興趣，他說。

“最重要的是客戶是誰。”布朗指出Tally的目標是“中間50%的美國人”，而不是所謂的 “尚未達到富裕水平的高收入者”，其他同行都在爭奪該群體。“一般的消費者不在乎每月0.3美元的利息。”他說。

如果自動化真是金融科技下一個大趨勢，朝自動化方向轉變就提出了問題：如何確定自動化服務能時刻注意保護客戶的最大利益？

布朗建議人跟著錢走。他說，廣告支持業務真正的客戶是廣告主，他們的利益與消費者并不相符。“最后會陷入困境，因為經常無法符合最大利益。”他說。

布朗說，Tally的業務模式中，只有為償還信用卡債務的客戶存錢時才能夠賺到錢。布朗說，平均每個客戶收入為15000美元，與全國平均水平差不多，Tally公司為每位客戶平均節省了5000美元，不然這些錢都得支付利息。

布朗說，公司使用該商業模式再加上“可審計日志”，日志中可以看出為什么給定時間各項決策中Tally的系統都是最好的選擇，就能讓人們很放心。

“沒有廣告，沒有下拉列表，也沒有推薦或圖表。”布朗說。“我們建立了能夠提供各項服務的系統。”（財富中文網）

譯者：馮豐

審校：夏林

The origins of today’s boom in consumer-focused “fintech,” or financial technology, trace back to the global economic meltdown in 2008.

Since that disaster struck, the industry has evolved through three discrete phases, says Jason Brown, CEO and cofounder of Tally, a fintech startup, on Balancing The Ledger, Fortune’s show covering the intersection of finance and tech.

The first wave met demands resulting from the aftermath of the financial crisis: A need for credit fueled alternative lenders. Online and peer-to-peer marketplaces, such as Prosper and LendingClub, flourished, while laid-off workers seeking to re-skill buoyed student loan providers like Social Finance, or SoFi.

The next wave swelled atop a flood of mobile devices that came after Apple debuted the iPhone in 2007. Access to consumers became the primary object for upstarts. Apps appealed to younger generations, used to flicking and tapping smartphone screens rather than visiting branch offices.

This paradigm is still in full swing. Some of its best-known champions: Credit Karma, a free credit score provider, Internet-only “neobanks” like Chime, Monzo, and N26, and online stock traders like Robinhood. “These are just really easy-to-use mobile tools that you can open up the toolbox and do your financial work,” Brown says.

Even as the second wave crests, a third is beginning to rise: Automation. “It’s going to a world where there’s an intelligent service that actually is doing that thinking and work for you,” Brown says. “Instead of you having to spend your time and figure out what should I do? It has already figured that out based on your goals.”

Brown is talking his own book, of course. His business, Tally, automates people’s credit card debt repayments, lowering their interest rates, and helping avoid late fees, the company claims. The firm also offers a savings product that automatically squirrels away funds, but pays no interest.

Tally’s approach to savings differs substantially from many of its peers. Rivals like Goldman Sachs’ Marcus, digital bank Ally, and so-called robo-advisers such as Betterment and Wealthfront are vying to offer the highest-yield savings account possible, usually around 2%. But Brown isn’t interested in that race, he says.

“What matters a lot is who your customer is,” Brown says, noting that Tally is going after “the middle 50% of Americans,” not the so-called HENRYs, or “high earners not rich yet,” a demographic over whom the others are battling. “Normal consumers, they do not care about $0.30 a month in interest,” he says.

If automation is truly fintech’s next big trend, the shift toward it raises a question: How can one be certain an automated service is keeping a customer’s best interests in mind?

Brown advises people to follow the money. Ad-supported businesses’ true customers are advertisers, he says, and their interests are ultimately misaligned with consumers’. “That puts you in a difficult situation because you’re not always going to do what’s best,” he says.

Brown says Tally is designed to make money only when it is saving money for customers who are paying back credit card debt. On average customers are $15,000 in the hole, Brown says—about the same as the national average—and Tally saves them about $5,000 on average, money they would otherwise be spending on interest.

Combine that business model with an “auditable log” tracking why each decision made Tally’s systems was the best one possible at any given time and people can rest assured they’re in good care, Brown says.

“There’s no ads, there’s no drop-downs, there’s no recommendations or charts,” Brown says. “We’ve built a system that can actually do it all for you.”