(By Dr. Joseph D. Lim and Dr. Kenneth Lester Lim, BS-MMG, DDM, MSc-OI)
FINANCIAL technology is a new way to improve and automate financial services such as mobile banking or the ATM.
That’s all there is to it, contrary to its high falutin name.
Also called fintech, it helps individuals, consumers, entrepreneurs, and companies do business in a better way. It uses software and algorithms in tools that are as varied as ATM machines, laptops and android phones.
According to Investopedia, fintech now includes different industries such as education, retail banking, fundraising and nonprofit, investment management, and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
And that’s just for starters. There are roboadvisors, payments apps, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending apps, investment apps, and crypto apps. And then there’s fintech for dentistry.
Revere Partners, which describes itself as the first and only venture capital fund focused on oral health, is investing more than $10 million in fintech for startup companies in the dental industry. These companies include startups such as Choice Payment Services, Walnut, FeatherPay, Plan Forward, Zuub, AirPay, and Tuuthfairy.
Revere Partners will provide the capital, innovation, and dental expertise necessary to grow and scale these portfolio companies.
The investment is “a much-needed light on an area of healthcare where there has been underinvestment in tech as an agent of change,” said Nancy Coy, CEO of Choice Payment Services.
Fintech solutions for oral health are expected to reduce barriers in oral health care. According to Revere Partners, a survey shows that nearly 60 percent of patients in America are concerned with the overall cost of healthcare services; 30 percent have even skipped necessary care due to high out-of-pocket costs.
Its investments address the current lack of centralization for financing and billing processes within the American dental industry.
They will include patient financing (Choice Payment Services, Walnut); payments (FeatherPay, Plan Forward); insurance (Zuub, AirPay, Tuuthfairy; and claims processing.
Revere Partner hopes to bring more affordability, transparency, and interoperability to dental offices, consumer products, providers, and patients.
“All of these investments have the potential to make a lasting impact across the entire dental ecosystem,” said Dr. Jeremy Krell, Revere Partners’ co-founder and managing partner.
“These startups will help offer providers a single, efficient, and modernized solution for dealing with what is currently a chaotic and disjointed system for handling payments, financing, and insurance claims. And for patients, advancements in these categories should lead to reduced time and stress, improved oral-health experiences and, ultimately, more reasonable costs and connectivity across the system.”
While these services may sound out of reach for Filipino consumers, who knows?
The way things are going, Filipinos are already very tech-savvy, and are reputed to be world leaders in text messaging and social media. They are, in fact, already using fintech on a daily basis such as Beep cards to pay for transportation, as well as electronic banking and services such as GCash to pay and/or move money around./PN
