The pandemic has without a doubt affected each and every aspect of our everyday lives, and media headlines have been dominated by it for almost two years now. I do not wish to dwell on this tragic subject for long, but we cannot deny the obvious – COVID-19 has forced us all to learn how to adapt to the new reality of things at lightning speed.
However, not everything in this new reality is bad. The crisis has forced various industries to embrace innovation and opened up a realm of amazing possibilities. Today, it is up to us, whether to leverage them and embrace the new flexible open mindset or not. Being an observer is no longer an option, and just like we all joined forces in a fight against the virus, we need to join forces and work on building a new future for businesses together. And where better to start, then with the backbone of any operating system – Financial Technology.
Studies have shown, that customers seek change in 5 criteria, when it comes to fintech solutions – transparency, availability, cost, convenience, and trust. To remain competitive in the ever-changing world of tomorrow, financial institutions have to accept the fact that things like mobile payments and automatic onboarding, should be laying out the foundation for their stable future, and ignoring them, would lead to a substantial loss of market share.
If we look at the fintech landscape of tomorrow, we can already highlight a number of trends, that will be shaping the future of the industry.
Customer centric and mobile first approaches will be the leading directions financial solutions would need to work on. Faced with restrictions, users realised the need for fast services and instant procedures, and fintech companies lead the way by supporting various service applications in their goal to provide a seamless customer experience. We can see a lot of potential for such mutual integrations moving onwards and a number of ways that such collaborations could support companies most affected by the pandemic today – for example, moving lending to a digital environment with simple and transparent tools could provide SMEs, who have lost their usual access to financial flows, with tools to obtain it.
Digitalisation is obviously another big trend that has been gaining momentum and that will continue dominating the future of fintech. Providing online access to services, automatic onboarding, credit card issuance, online AML / KYC checks are all important components of what lies ahead for the industry. After all, this is how fintech appeared in the first place – it was born from the need to solve challenges and digitalise procedures that no one dared to do before.
An outdated technology stack is the main stumble point of any progress. Various industries, including the banking one, are struggling with legacy systems that are either outdated or weren’t originally part of their technological solutions (for example, as a result of new asset purchase). This means that they are stuck with a poorly scalable solution that prohibits them from being flexible and responsive to changes. Enter fintechs, that resolve these issues by taking care of both individual business problems and entire business processes, thus saving time and money and allowing these companies to catch up with their more pro-active competition. The collaboration between fintech and traditional banks creates a synergistic effect that opens up new opportunities for both parties. Fintechs create innovative solutions and gain access to banking infrastructures, while banks, in return, receive a new product and stream of customers.
Additionally, I would also like to mention a couple of trends, that I personally find key in the development of our industry:
Embedded finance opens up opportunities to integrate financial services into various applications.
Platform APIs and API distributions provide an excellent environment for building something global and scalable.
Open banking can potentially increase transparency in the banking industry and create convenient financial instruments for both business and retail clients without unnecessary bureaucracy.
Digital wallets are already a reality and are replacing bank cards from our lives, while card-less transactions will soon surprise no one.
It is in our hands to build the financial world of tomorrow and to develop solutions that are backed by innovation and modernised tech infrastructure. It is fintech’s time to shine and lead the way to a better, adaptable future.
About Anton Komukhin
About Unlimint
Founded in 2009, Unlimint provides fast-growing innovative businesses with a constantly evolving financial interface, made by innovators for innovators, and designed to make the financial world of tomorrow closer to businesses here and now. From London to Singapore and from San Francisco to São Paulo, we help local clients enter new markets, and global businesses to explore new industries and reach new milestones.
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