Digital platforms and technologies such as cloud and APIs (application programming interfaces) allow the commingling of payment and financial services with services or products from other sectors, disintermediating banks and other traditional players and transforming them in “white label” service providers. Crowdfunding and invoice trading platforms are developing and becoming more competitive in providing funding to the real economy.
That recession started late in 2000 as a result of four adverse shocks to our economy: the collapse of the high-tech boom and the Nasdaq bubble that had enabled so many Israeli high-tech startups to flourish; the global recession that started in 2001; the tailing off of the immigration from the former Soviet Union to Israel; and the second intifada.